Authors: Rick Jones
Dulles Airport, Washington,
D.C.
September 22, Late Afternoon
When
Shepherd One landed at Dulles, the plane taxied under the watchful eyes of
thousands who waited to gaze upon the pontiff from cordoned-off areas within
the terminal. Hand-painted signs waved, people cheered, and the air became
electric as the pope exited the plane and made his way down the breezeway in
full decorative vestments. After reaching the terminal and giving the
sign-of-the-cross as a papal blessing to the masses, he then offered his hand
to the political principals who either kissed the Piscatorial Ring in greeting
or simply shook his hand.
In an area set aside for the
media, cameras and news networks recorded the moment of the pope’s arrival,
capturing the pontiff’s first celebrated appearance upon American soil, as he
and his papal team made their way to a procession of limos.
Raising an arm toward the masses,
Pope Pius XIII waved, inciting a cheer, before ducking into the governor’s
vehicle.
One man, however, appeared
indifferent.
#
From
the crowd’s
front line, a man of light
complexion neither smiled nor showed any emotion as he studied the pope. He
gave the impression of being deep in thought, an effect caused by the act of
tracing his fingers over the scar beneath his chin.
Just prior to the pope’s arrival,
Team Leader received intel that the president of the United States had assigned
a detail of four battle-tested agents, a highly skilled contingent team, along
with the usual police security, to guard the Governor’s Mansion where the pope
would be staying.
But Team Leader’s unit was honed
to the level of an elite force. And despite the president’s confidence in the
capabilities of his agents, Team Leader knew that taking the Governor’s Mansion
would be nothing more than a nominal exercise performed at minimal risk. By
morning, Pope Pius XIII would be within his authority, and the president’s
detail would be nothing more than a list of names on the obituary page of the
morning news.
With inwardly-turned enthusiasm,
Team Leader envisioned his unit moving through the halls of the Governor’s
Mansion with stealth and precision. He had trained his team repeatedly until
their motions became involuntary acts rather than practiced maneuvers. This, in
turn, developed a higher degree of instinct in decision-making, which now took
nanoseconds rather than moments. The infinitesimal time difference could mean
the difference between success and failure in such an operation.
As the Governor’s limo and its supporting
motorcade started toward the airport exit, Team Leader began to move against
the crowd and toward the terminal doors.
Annapolis, Maryland
September 22, Early Evening
Normally, VIP dignitaries stayed at Blair House, which is the official state guest quarters of the
president of the United States. But since the residence was occupied by top
Chinese officials on a mission to improve trade relations with the United
States, the pope was housed at the Governor‘s Mansion in Annapolis, not far
from the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory.
When it became apparent that Blair
House would be unavailable during the weeks of the pope’s visit, Maryland’s
governor offered to host the pontiff at the Mansion, with provisional security
provided by the president. It was not a gesture of good will. It was an
opportunity for Governor Steele to promote his bid for a seat in the Senate in
the upcoming election. With the pope’s visitation cementing the governor’s image
as a conservative Christian, it would serve well as the basis of his platform
in the months to come.
Campaigning alongside him would be
his wife of eleven years, Darlene Steele. With azure blue eyes, pale porcelain
skin, and a graceful elegance to her movements, she embodied the image of
Victorian innocence. But beneath her gracious persona she had all the
quintessence of a remora clinging to the underside of her husband’s political
belly, feeding off whatever remnants floated her way. Money, power and status
were the lures that kept her in a loveless marriage with the governor.
Inside the dining area of the
mansion, Governor Jonathan Steele headed a stately ceremonial dinner with
political luminaries including the lieutenant governor, two state senators and
a representative from the House Committee. With the pope and the bishops of the
Holy See in attendance, the dining room was filled to capacity.
For three hours they sat at a
table that dominated the room’s center, drinking wine or liqueur or both, and
eating from a rich and varied menu that gratified the palate of everyone.
Bearing witness to this cheerful
gathering were oil paintings of past governors, arranged along the rich cherry
paneling of the East Wall. Their faces, unmoving for all time, appeared
studious and judgmental as they stared from mercury-hued eyes. From the
coffered ceiling suspended a magnificent Bohemian chandelier, its multiple
teardrop-shaped crystals glittering with iridescent pinpricks of light. And
opposite the Governors’ Gallery, floor-to-ceiling panes of tempered glass made
up the entire West Wall, providing a panoramic view of the horizon as soft hues
of fading light traversed the color spectrum throughout the course of the meal.
Nothing was more perfect than the
moment.
As the night grew late, the time
difference between Rome and Washington proving too great for the pope, Pius
proposed an end to the evening by bestowing blessings all around before
retiring to his room.
Everyone, including those who
never subscribed to a certain denomination or faith or followed any specific
religious path, found themselves in awe of this king who ruled an empire of
more than a billion people.
With the dignitaries vacating soon
after the conclusion of the meal, the dining hall became eerily silent as the
faces of the Governors’ Gallery alone watched over the room.
In time, they would watch a scene
play itself out in grisly fashion with the same unflinching pose, and their
eyes as dead and pale as marbles would betray nothing of what they were about
to become witness to.
#
After dinner, Bishop
Angelo
aided the pope to his bedroom and hung his vestments in the walk-in closet
while Pius prepared himself for bed by putting on his sacred undergarment, a
cotton pullover that covered the man from neck to ankle.
After the pope labored to the edge of his mattress, Bishop
Angelo assisted the elderly man beneath the sheets, then pulled the blankets
tight around him.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
The pope moved as if trying to settle contentedly into the
mattress, his back and shoulders digging. “Well, it’s not home,” he answered,
his movement slowing after finding a relaxing spot. “But it’ll do.”
Angelo laid a hand upon the pontiff’s shoulder and felt the
pointed bonelike protrusion of a man having wasted away by the progression of
age. “Perhaps you would like to read before you retire.”
The pope nodded. “Not tonight, Gennaro. Tomorrow’s going to
be a big day for all of us and we‘ll need to be at our best.”
“Then have a good night.”
On his way out Bishop Angelo took time to straighten out the
pope’s pearl-white miter sitting on top of the dresser, a king’s crown, then
closed the door softly behind him until the snicker of the bolt locked in
place.
On most evenings Pope Pius XIII either read from the Bible
or gazed through the passages of
Paradise Lost
from John Milton, finding
the language and meter of the poem masterful, and looked upon the work as a
liberal effort affirming that the Church would always be seen through the
critical eyes of its followers.
But tonight he was too tired to even flip back the cover of
the leather-bound volume and switched off the table lamp, the darkness sweeping
across the room in a blink of an eye.
In an attitude of prayer, Pope Pius placed his hands
together and worshiped his Lord, thanking Him for raising him from the ranks of
obscurity to that of prominence.
He had come from a family of eleven, all poor, some sickly,
but none without faith or hope. Never in his life had he witnessed war or
famine or the plagues of man due to living in a small village sixty kilometers
west of Florence, Italy. Nor did he have an epiphany to follow the Lord’s path.
Amerigo was simply enamored as a boy who loved God and everything He stood for:
The Good, the Caring, and the ability to hold dominion over others and lead
them toward the world of Light and Loving Spirits.
He also dreamed of sermonizing, of passing The Word.
But his father would have none of it and obligated his son
to work the fields of the homestead alongside his brothers knowing that the
true measurement of a man was calculated by the crops he yielded rather than
the knowledge of academia, which in this village took a man nowhere.
So having been taught by his mother at home, having read and
memorized all the passages of the Bible, having learned the basics in
rudimentary math, and having tilled the fields with his siblings for nearly a
decade, Amerigo Giovanni Anzalone had become a learned man with calloused hands
from driving the yolk, and came to realize that tilling the soils was not his
calling in life.
Every Sunday he went to church with his mother and siblings.
And for every day thereafter, as he worked the soil beneath a relentless sun,
he dreamed of wearing the vestments of a priest and giving sermon. What Amerigo
wanted, what he needed, was to be empowered by the Church to give direction.
Upon his eighteenth birthday, and against his father’s
wishes—but with the aid of the village priest, which his father was unwilling
to contest—Amerigo gave up the yoke and headed to the Divinity School in
Florence, his first stepping stone toward Rome.
In the years to follow, Amerigo was recognized as a cardinal
and became a respected member within the Curia, which ultimately led the
College of Cardinals to choose him as the successor to John Paul the Second.
Upon his acceptance, Amerigo took the name of Pope Pius the XIII.
And like his predecessor, Amerigo would offer a hand to
every race and religion, leaving nobody out, nobody alone. He would simply
embrace the world with love and tolerance, beginning with the United States.
With that thought on his mind, Pope Pius XIII fell asleep
with his hands slowly drifting apart, and then falling idly to his sides.
He was
nine years old when he lost his mother and sister to a suicide bomber on a trip
to Ramallah. After going to the market, the boy, his mother, and his
twelve-year-old sister boarded a bus for home.
Even to this day his memories
recalled the pain and confusion of the explosion with fresh intensity, as if
the blast happened just the day before.
It was a hot day in Ramallah.
His mother had removed her shoe to massage her foot, and his sister sat quietly
beside her. From the rear of the bus, the boy watched a man board, his coat
much too bulky for such a warm day, and took a seat a few rows ahead of them.
As the bus moved along its route picking up passengers and filling to capacity,
he could not take his eyes off this man.
The man appeared nervous and
uneasy, his brow slick with sweat as he took several glances around him,
finally spying the boy in the back. Their eyes locked, and somehow the man
knew that the boy was perceptive, while others all
around him had no suspicion of what he was about to do.
Offering a scarcely perceptible
smile, the man gave him what seemed to be an affable nod, then raised his hand.
In it he held a switch that was to be depressed with his thumb. “To all
occupiers of the nation of Islam, Allah is great!”
Just as he was about to turn to
his mother and ask her who Allah was, the man pushed the button.
With the slowness of a bad
dream, the boy watched the man break up into countless pieces. Flame and
pressure blew out the walls of the bus. People sitting close to him disappeared
within the licks of fire and ash. Piercing cries filled the air, hanging as
thick as the acrid smoke. And propelled by the force of the blast, a piece of
metal caught the boy on the chin, gashing his flesh into a horrible second
mouth that seemed to open wide with the awe of confusion.
After that he could only
remember seeing a swatch of blue sky tainted with greasy black smoke and
feeling the heat of a nearby fire.
Only when he awoke several days
later to the haggard face of his father, his skin as loose as a rubber mask,
did he finally feel the agonies of his pain. With second degree burns over
thirty percent of his body and the severe gash beneath his chin, the boy was
incredibly lucky. The real pain came when he learned that his mother and sister
had died in the blast.
When he asked why the man did
what he did on the bus, his father told him.
That was the day he learned
what life would be like for a Jew living in a land of open hostilities.
Taking a deep breath, and with the
images of his childhood fading, Team Leader opened his eyes to see the members
of his team meditating as the van made its way to the Governor’s Mansion. Every
soldier, every stolid commando, as dictated by his constant training, was
visualizing in detail his every movement, to assure that there would be no room
for mistakes during actual combat.
Each man was equipped with an
Israeli Bullpup assault weapon—a product of Israeli technology with devastating
capabilities—and dressed identically, from the black tactical jumpsuit to the
ski mask and night-vision monocular. Nobody on his team deviated in appearance.
Unwilling to carry a Bullpup, Team
Leader opted for a Sig Sauer P220 40-caliber with suppressor and grip-attached
laser sighting. It was his weapon of choice—a weapon he had become accustomed
to as an assassin.
On the floor al-Hashrie and
al-Bashrah lay cuffed and dressed in pressed military fatigues, the men praying
softly in Arabic, which Team Leader allowed without punitive action from
anybody on his team.
For the third time in the last
five minutes, Team Leader looked at his watch, realizing that months of
preparation would soon bear the fruit of their labors. And then he closed his
eyes once again, the images of that day in Ramallah reminding him why he was
about to go to war.
The time was 0128 hours.