there I took the whole course. That’s the first time I ever used what I learned.”
“Well,” said Brennan, “we should give thanks that you could use it when you needed it.” He lifted his nearly empty glass. “ Slainte ,” he said, pronouncing the ancient Irish toast as “slancha.” He put his glass down on the table. “So, now what, Colonel?”
“We see if there’s anything on that memory stick,” answered Holliday. “Did you bring the laptop?”
“Right here,” said Brennan, patting the seat beside him.
“Then let’s go.”
The suite was standard upscale Hilton: two generic prints above the beds in each of the bedrooms and everything in muted shades of rust and pink and beige. Tasteful and inoffensive. There was a Wi-Fi connection, a sitting room between the bedrooms and big screen TVs everywhere except the bathrooms. Holliday set up the computer on the little desk in the room and booted it up. He plugged the USB drive into the appropriate port and waited a few seconds for the menu window to open. There were three files on the memory stick: “Tritt,” “Sinclair” and “Itinerary.”
All three files were CIA reports from what had clearly been a much larger file under the project name Crusader. From what Holliday could tell, Crusader was a classic arm’s-length Delaware company like Evergreen International Airlines and In-Q-Tel, a high-technology dummy corporation whose main function was to monitor traffic carried on telecommunication satellites. According to the file numbers, Crusader had been in operation, although inactive, for two years.
“If Crusader involves Kate Sinclair, how come it pre-dates that whole episode during the summer—Sable Island and buried relics and all that?” Peggy asked.
“Sinclair’s main objective was to put her son in the White House,” said Holliday. “Those phony relics were just a means to an end. I think Crusader might well be her version of Plan B.”
“How does assassinating the Pope accomplish that?” Peggy asked.
“That’s what we have to find out,” said Holliday.
He went back to Tritt’s resume.
A graduate of the U.S. Army Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia, William Spenser Tritt spent the early part of his career in Afghanistan “advising” the mujahideen rebels, then moved on to Bush Senior’s war in Iraq. After mustering out of the army with an honor-able discharge he immediately found employment with the DEA and their Condor Group assassination squads operating in Cambodia, Thailand and Central and South America. From there it was a simple step to the CIA. Sometime during his sojourn with Central Intelligence he was offered a great deal of money by one of the Colombian cartels to assassinate one of his rivals. From that point on he freelanced, working for anyone who could meet his exorbitant price. He took assignments from Mexican drug lords, the Russian mafiya , African despots and even his old friends at the CIA. He was the perfect candidate to murder the Pope, but there was no clue to the benefit his death would have for anyone, with the possible exception of a cardinal who desperately wanted to be Pope himself, which seemed unlikely. There were lots of intrigues and jealousies at the Vatican, but to Brennan, at least, none that would justify murder.
The Sinclair file was filled with details of the family’s high-profile life, including their long association with Rex Deus, but that rumor was in the public domain for most people and fodder for Internet conspiracy theorists. Like the Bush family’s membership in Skull and Bones, the Sinclairs’ membership had just about as much effect on their image: none. If anything it gave them a certain cachet. Once again there was no perceived threat. Senator Sinclair was mentioned, as were his extreme conservative philosophies, but he certainly wasn’t the only one in the senate who had the same views.
Like John McCain before him, Senator Sinclair was a “maverick,” voting
“Well,” said Brennan, “we should give thanks that you could use it when you needed it.” He lifted his nearly empty glass. “ Slainte ,” he said, pronouncing the ancient Irish toast as “slancha.” He put his glass down on the table. “So, now what, Colonel?”
“We see if there’s anything on that memory stick,” answered Holliday. “Did you bring the laptop?”
“Right here,” said Brennan, patting the seat beside him.
“Then let’s go.”
The suite was standard upscale Hilton: two generic prints above the beds in each of the bedrooms and everything in muted shades of rust and pink and beige. Tasteful and inoffensive. There was a Wi-Fi connection, a sitting room between the bedrooms and big screen TVs everywhere except the bathrooms. Holliday set up the computer on the little desk in the room and booted it up. He plugged the USB drive into the appropriate port and waited a few seconds for the menu window to open. There were three files on the memory stick: “Tritt,” “Sinclair” and “Itinerary.”
All three files were CIA reports from what had clearly been a much larger file under the project name Crusader. From what Holliday could tell, Crusader was a classic arm’s-length Delaware company like Evergreen International Airlines and In-Q-Tel, a high-technology dummy corporation whose main function was to monitor traffic carried on telecommunication satellites. According to the file numbers, Crusader had been in operation, although inactive, for two years.
“If Crusader involves Kate Sinclair, how come it pre-dates that whole episode during the summer—Sable Island and buried relics and all that?” Peggy asked.
“Sinclair’s main objective was to put her son in the White House,” said Holliday. “Those phony relics were just a means to an end. I think Crusader might well be her version of Plan B.”
“How does assassinating the Pope accomplish that?” Peggy asked.
“That’s what we have to find out,” said Holliday.
He went back to Tritt’s resume.
A graduate of the U.S. Army Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia, William Spenser Tritt spent the early part of his career in Afghanistan “advising” the mujahideen rebels, then moved on to Bush Senior’s war in Iraq. After mustering out of the army with an honor-able discharge he immediately found employment with the DEA and their Condor Group assassination squads operating in Cambodia, Thailand and Central and South America. From there it was a simple step to the CIA. Sometime during his sojourn with Central Intelligence he was offered a great deal of money by one of the Colombian cartels to assassinate one of his rivals. From that point on he freelanced, working for anyone who could meet his exorbitant price. He took assignments from Mexican drug lords, the Russian mafiya , African despots and even his old friends at the CIA. He was the perfect candidate to murder the Pope, but there was no clue to the benefit his death would have for anyone, with the possible exception of a cardinal who desperately wanted to be Pope himself, which seemed unlikely. There were lots of intrigues and jealousies at the Vatican, but to Brennan, at least, none that would justify murder.
The Sinclair file was filled with details of the family’s high-profile life, including their long association with Rex Deus, but that rumor was in the public domain for most people and fodder for Internet conspiracy theorists. Like the Bush family’s membership in Skull and Bones, the Sinclairs’ membership had just about as much effect on their image: none. If anything it gave them a certain cachet. Once again there was no perceived threat. Senator Sinclair was mentioned, as were his extreme conservative philosophies, but he certainly wasn’t the only one in the senate who had the same views.
Like John McCain before him, Senator Sinclair was a “maverick,” voting
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