Credible Threat, page 30
“The confessional is right back there,” Father Mike told Francis, pointing off to the right side of the vestibule. “Father Howard is probably already there.” Archbishop Gillespie knew full well where the confessional was, but he allowed himself to be bossed around.
Although the Cathedral of the Holy Mother was the archbishop’s home church, the priest in charge on a day-to-day basis was Father John Howard. He was also Francis’s usual confessor. At breakfast Ali had told Archbishop Gillespie what had gone on the day before. He now knew that a woman named Rachel Higgins was most likely the person who’d murdered not only Father Andrew but also her own husband. There could be little doubt that she was intent on murdering Francis Gillespie as well.
Considering everything Ali had told him about what had happened to the Higgins family, Francis could hardly blame the poor deranged creature for what she’d done. Once confession was over and he’d said the required Hail Marys, he planned to spend whatever time remained between then and the service in solitary prayer.
Having been exposed to Ali’s very real concerns that Rachel might come for him today, Francis realized that this period of quiet counted as the calm before the storm. Confession would put Francis Gillespie’s spiritual affairs in order. After that it would be time for the archbishop to turn to his favorite Bible verse of all time, Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” Shielded by that, he would face whatever came his way with a joyful heart.
Father Mike wheeled the chair over to the door of the confessional and helped the archbishop enter.
“I’ll be right outside whenever you’re ready,” Father Mike said.
“If you don’t mind,” Archbishop Gillespie said, “I’d like you to leave me here until it’s time for the procession to start. If you’ll bring my vestments, I’ll put them on inside the confessional.”
“You want me to leave you here?” Father Mike asked. “Alone and in the dark?”
“Yes,” the archbishop said. “Sometimes being alone in the dark is the only way to find the light.”
|CHAPTER 55|
Cami and Stu showed up at the residence at ten past eight, moments after Father Mike and the archbishop had departed. Once again Ali was impressed by the way Stu took charge of the gathering in the drawing room, explaining to the impromptu posse how the iPads had been set so that once the camera on each iPad was activated, it would run continuously until the device ran out of battery power. He showed them how the iPads should be held to provide the widest possible angle for the camera lenses. Finally he produced a paper showing the layout of the cathedral’s entrances and interior, pointing out where each person would be stationed in order to provide maximum coverage.
“All right,” Father Winston said when Stu finished. “What happens if we find her?”
“The screen on the affected iPad will go full red. When that happens, Frigg will be notified, and she’ll send texts to everyone, letting us know and directing everyone to the target’s location inside the church. The idea is to surround the suspect and isolate her in such a way as to mitigate any potential damage.”
“And the Tasers?” Father Winston asked.
“You have to be within fifteen feet of the target before one of those works,” Cami explained. “Hitting her with the darts will disable her long enough to disarm her, and that’s the whole point. She obviously has a lethal weapon and isn’t afraid to use it.”
“I always thought churches were supposed to be gun-free zones,” Father McCray observed sadly.
“Trust me,” Cami said. “If Rachel Higgins shows up today, the cathedral won’t be a gun-free zone for anybody. That’s why the rest of us are using Tasers. We can’t run the risk of setting off a barrage of gunfire inside the church. If innocent bystanders end up being zapped by Tasers in the melee, at least they won’t be dead. Questions?”
With no further comments, and with no objections either, it was up to Stu to end the pre-encounter briefing. “All right, then,” he said. “I suspect that people are going to start showing up at the cathedral early. The doors open at ten. I want you all inside and at your designated stations ten minutes before that. Got it?”
“Got it,” Father Winston said. “We’ll be there.”
|CHAPTER 56|
When Kyle Lasko reached for his ringing cell phone at eight o’clock on Friday morning, he hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. He was frustrated that despite an exhausting overnight effort the search for Rachel Higgins had come up empty. On less than three hours of sleep, he now had to contend with a phone call from Captain Robard.
“Lasko here,” he mumbled into the phone.
“I know you and Horner both worked until all hours, but we just got word that Rachel Higgins’s SEL is on the third floor of the Terminal Three parking garage at Sky Harbor Airport.”
That snapped Kyle wide awake. “I’ll be right there,” he said.
He was, and so was Detective Horner. Without a search warrant covering the vehicle, the best they could do to begin with was inspect it from outside.
“Looks to me like she slept in the car,” Mason said.
Kyle nodded. “We can check with TSA to see if she cleared security and flew out somewhere, but my guess is she didn’t.”
* * *
And she hadn’t, but determining that for sure took them the better part of two hours. “What now?” Mason asked.
“If Rachel’s still gunning for Archbishop Gillespie, she’ll be at Father O’Toole’s funeral,” Kyle told him, “and we’d better be there, too.”
“Should we call in SWAT?” Mason asked. “Bring in an army of uniforms and make a show of force?”
Kyle Lasko knew about Chief Adolfo’s involvement in the case. Mason Horner did not. Kyle worried that a visible police presence might very well set Rachel off. With a church full of mourners in possible danger and with the likelihood that the chief would be among them, that wasn’t a risk Kyle was willing to take.
Ali hadn’t bothered responding to his earlier text, but as he and Detective Horner left the TSA command post, Kyle sent her a second, more urgent message.
We’ve posted an APB on Rachel Higgins. She’s likely the Lincoln Drive shooter. Call me. Now.
Ali called back almost immediately. “If you’re expecting me to stand down,” she said, “you can forget it.”
“Rachel’s given us the slip,” he told her, deciding in that moment that it was time to treat this woman as a capable ally instead of the opposition. “I’m guessing she’s on her way to the funeral. What do you have going?”
“We’ve got facial rec on Rachel Higgins running at all entrances. My people are carrying Tasers only. No handguns—way too many chances for collateral damage.”
Considering his concerns about potentially turning the Cathedral of the Holy Mother into a shooting gallery, Ali’s plan made sense.
“Good call,” Kyle said. “If you can bring her down, you’ll need sworn officers on hand to place her under arrest. I’ll be there, and so will Detective Mason Horner, the lead detective on the Richard Higgins case.”
“Rachel shot him?” Ali asked.
“That’s the theory,” Kyle replied, “but at the moment it’s too thin to prosecute. We’ll need to locate the weapon she used to kill her husband. Chances are,” he added, “she probably still has it.”
“All right,” Ali said after a pause. “My people are on the job. See you when you get here. I’ll be stationed on the left-hand side of the main entrance.”
“Okay, on our way.”
|CHAPTER 57|
Archbishop Francis Gillespie sat in the quiet gloom of the confessional and prayed without ceasing. He paid no attention to the hushed conversations as mourners gathered to honor Father Andrew. Had he focused on the people out in the cathedral’s vestibule, he might have been derailed into wondering whether Rachel Higgins was already outside waiting for him. No, thinking that way might have disrupted his concentration. His original intent had been to save the soul of whoever was targeting him. That seemed unlikely now.
After chapel that morning and before going to breakfast, he’d asked Father Mike to wheel him into his study. There, seated at his desk for possibly the last time, he had used the Montblanc pen from Cardinal Moser to write a letter. With his arm in a sling and his body encased in a layer of body armor that felt like a straitjacket, that wasn’t easy, but once it was written, he sealed the letter in an envelope and dropped it on Father Daniel’s desk on the way out.
During breakfast Ali had brought everyone up to speed. There hadn’t yet been any public announcements about the murder of Richard Higgins, but somehow Ali had access to details of the investigation that had not yet been released. How, the archbishop wondered, did she know that not only was Rachel Higgins the prime suspect in her husband’s murder but also that she was most likely the person responsible for taking Father Andrew’s life?
The archbishop regarded the fate of Richard and Rachel’s son, David, as his own personal failure. Despite Francis’s wholehearted effort to wipe the archdiocese clean of pedophilia, Father Needham had continued to practice his evil almost in plain sight. And it was the terrible loss of Rachel’s beloved and tormented son that had driven her to this madness, because madness it was.
Despite High Noon’s best efforts, she might well succeed, so if these were Francis’s last few hours on earth, he would spend them in the best possible way—praying, forgiving, and asking forgiveness.
The archbishop had a long list. He started with the Higgins family and prayed for all of them—for Richard, Rachel, and David. For David especially, he prayed that the young man’s death had indeed been accidental rather than deliberate. Next he prayed for all the other St. Francis boys who’d been abused by Father Needham and for the boys damaged by other predatory priests, both in his archdiocese and elsewhere, and he prayed for their families as well.
Next Francis prayed for all the people who had come to aid him in his time of need—the EMTs, doctors, and nurses who’d cared for him after the shooting, and for the people at High Noon who’d taken the threats against his life so very seriously. He went so far as to include a word of thankfulness to the Almighty for High Noon’s strange but obviously very effective associate, an AI named Frigg.
Francis prayed for the immortal soul of Father Andrew and asked that Father Daniel might be comforted in his grief. He gave thanks for his long-lasting friendship with Sister Anselm and for the presence of her new partner, Sister Cecelia, who would, he hoped, be there to take over when it was time for Sister Anselm to lay down her own burdens.
At last, done with his church family, Francis turned his prayerful attention to his own family—giving thanks for his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, and for his niece, Marcella, whose occasional letters had continued to give him a window into his brother’s life despite the decades of estrangement between them.
Finished at last, Francis was in the process of praying for the courage to face whatever dangers this day might hold when there was a light tap on the door of the confessional.
“It’s time,” Father Mike said from outside. “I’m here with your vestments, and I’ll help you into them.”
By the time the archbishop was properly dressed, it was 10:55, only five minutes before the procession was due to start. Francis knew that five minutes of small talk were probably all he could manage. Father Mike, already wearing a set of borrowed vestments, helped Archbishop Gillespie don his own.
“I’ll be seated next to you on the dais,” Father Mike said as he opened the door to face the crowd. “If you need anything, let me know.”
Archbishop Gillespie had conducted countless funeral Masses over his lifetime, but this one was far too close to his heart. Father Andrew’s mother, Barbara, had selected the music. As the congregation sang “Loved One, Farewell,” Father Mike slipped the archbishop into his spot in the processional and wheeled him down the center aisle.
The acoustics in the cathedral were perfect. As the words “Friend of our happy days; brother of prayer and praise” rose to fill the sanctuary, Archbishop Gillespie felt a hard lump form in his throat. Yes, he and Father Andrew had indeed been friends in prayer and praise, but now was not the time for Francis to succumb to his own private grief. His job today was to comfort others. As Father Mike rolled him up the makeshift ramp, Francis pulled it together, and when it came time for him to speak, he was ready. His voice didn’t waver as he greeted the congregation and introduced Father Andrew’s good friend Father Daniel to deliver the first reading.
It occurred to Archbishop Gillespie then that if the facial-recognition surveillance team hadn’t located Rachel Higgins by now, maybe she wasn’t coming.
|CHAPTER 58|
As the procession left the vestibule and started down the center aisle, Ali breathed a sigh of relief. Of course it was possible Rachel had managed to slip through their facial-rec screening, but she doubted it. Everyone on the team had been on high alert. As for Archbishop Gillespie? She’d caught a glimpse of him as Father Mike rolled him into his place of honor. He sat with his hands on his knees, his face solemn but composed. He didn’t look like someone worried about an assassin’s bullet.
She had spoken briefly to Detectives Lasko and Horner when they arrived, shortly before the service started. Once she’d pointed out each member of her security team, the two detectives had opted to enter the sanctuary, where they took seats in separate pews, one a third of the way down the aisle and the other at the two-thirds point. Strategically, that made sense. If an attack were forthcoming, front or back, one of them would be close to the action.
Nothing in the two officers’ understated arrival had announced a police presence, but Ali was grateful to have sworn officers on the scene. If all hell broke loose, she was confident that High Noon’s people could bring Rachel Higgins down, but having cops available to take her into custody would be best for all concerned. And if it turned out Tasers weren’t enough to do the job, it would be better for High Noon to have law-enforcement bullets ricocheting off the cathedral walls rather than civilian ones.
The vast church was full but not overflowing. After the second scriptural reading, Archbishop Gillespie delivered a poignant homily. Then, as the congregation sang chorus after chorus of “Amazing Grace,” Father Howard stepped forward to serve Communion.
Engrossed in the Mass, Ali was surprised when the iPad in her arms suddenly lit up. Startled, she looked around. A latecomer to the funeral, a nun, had quietly entered the church behind Ali and had just walked past. With the center aisle clogged by communicants, the newcomer made a beeline for the aisle that ran along the wall on the left-hand side of the sanctuary.
Ali’s first thought was that maybe this was some glitch in the facial-rec software. Then it dawned on her—the woman who was dressed as a nun wasn’t. She was Rachel Higgins. As other members of the team received their notifications from Frigg and turned to look in Ali’s direction, she, too, hurried toward the side aisle, pointing as she went and reaching for her Taser.
|CHAPTER 59|
Sitting quietly on the dais during the Eucharist, Archbishop Gillespie was the first to see the latecomer dart into the sanctuary. He understood at once that she was an impostor. No real nun would have entered the cathedral without pausing to genuflect and cross herself. No, the new arrival had to be Rachel Higgins herself, masquerading as a nun.
Prior to setting foot on the dais, Father Mike had told the archbishop if he needed to leave for any reason, all he had to do was say so. Wanting to face the threat head-on and confine it to as small an area as possible, Francis touched Father Mike’s knee and nodded in the direction of the wheelchair ramp.
“Are you ill?” Father Mike whispered as he hurried to comply.
“I need to leave,” Archbishop Gillespie replied urgently. “Use the side aisle, please.”
The side aisle was crowded, too, with people returning to their pews after receiving Communion. “Sorry, coming through,” the archbishop said, motioning them out of the way.
As members of Ali’s team hurried in that direction from other parts of the sanctuary, members of the congregation seemed to tumble to the idea that something was amiss. Although the organ kept on playing, the singing faltered and “Amazing Grace” came to a ragged halt. By the time the archbishop was face-to-face with the make-believe nun, the organ music had faded away as well.
There was no gun visible in the woman’s hands. It might have been concealed in a pocket, but that was a good thing. Had someone seen the weapon and sounded the alarm, there would likely have been a wholesale stampede toward the door.
As his wheelchair came to a stop, Francis paused long enough to say a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Rachel hadn’t come out shooting—at least not yet. And if this was indeed his time to die, he wasn’t going to be a coward about it.
“Rachel Higgins, I presume,” he said firmly. “I’m Archbishop Gillespie. I believe you wished to see me.”
In a cathedral blessed with perfect acoustics, the archbishop’s booming voice reverberated throughout the space. Beyond Rachel stood Ali, Taser in hand.
“Let her be, Ali,” Archbishop Gillespie ordered. “Rachel came here with something to say. Let’s hear what it is.”
“You killed my son,” she snarled.
“I did not kill your son, but I’m certainly responsible for his death. For that I am very sorry,” he said. “David was one of Father Needham’s unfortunate victims, and that happened on my watch. As soon as I became aware of the situation, I put a stop to it.”
“But not soon enough,” Rachel shot back. “The damage was already done. David died of a drug overdose, but what really killed him was the abuse perpetrated against him, and you’re the one who should have prevented it. The Catholic Church should have prevented it.”
