May 1981, Vatican City: As twenty-thousand euphoric believers piled into St. Peter’s Square to await Pope John Paul II’s weekly general audience, a young man of twenty-three, his hands hidden in his jacket pockets despite the warm day, settled among the pilgrims near the barricades where the Pope would soon pass by. As the slow-moving jeep carrying the Bishop of Rome drew even with where he was standing, Mehmet Ali Agca pulled a gun from his pocket and fired six times at point blank range before he was stopped by the people around him, and arrested by security forces. Although grievously wounded John Paul II survived the attack. (He would later ascribe his survival to miraculous intervention—a divine hand guiding the bullet so as to miss every major organ and artery.) Over the years the attack on the Pope has been the subject of intense speculation. Some believe it was the work of a crazed lone gunman. Others are convinced it was a conspiracy involving one or more foreign powers and their intelligence services. No one has even come close to explaining what really happened, why the Pope was targeted, or who was responsible. Until now.