Authors: Rick Jones
Boston, Massachusetts
September 23, Early Evening
Steve
O’Brien was second in command of Alpha Team and used the moniker of Kodiak, for
the giant bears of Alaska. Prior to his induction into the squad, O’Brien had
been an Army Ranger, an elite soldier in terms of combat, courage and duty. Now
he was a mercenary, recruited for the tools he had to offer.
He stood six-four and
two-hundred-seventy pounds. His body was pure rippling muscle, his biceps
larger than most men’s thighs. And to keep with his military heritage he wore
his flattop to specs, closely cropped and ruler straight. Running from the edge
of his right eye to the corner of his lip, forever drawing his mouth into a
sneer, was a puckered scar from a wound laid open by an al-Qaeda rebel hiding
in the hills along the Afghan border. The rebel’s victory, however, was short
lived once Kodiak took the knife away and used it against him. He ended up
hanging the rebel’s head on a pike for several days.
The other members of the Alpha
Team had taken the tags of Boa, Diamondback, King Snake and Sidewinder,
monikers assigned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicating stealth, poise, and
deadly precision. But Kodiak saw the tags as degrading, since snakes make it a
lifelong journey to crawl along their bellies, something he saw as lowly and
undignified.
Like him, Boa and King Snake were
former Army Rangers, while Diamondback and Sidewinder were Green Berets.
But to this group, Team Leader
remained a mystery.
Nobody knew who he was or where he
came from, but he exuded such raw power nobody dared to consider challenging
him.
Kodiak glanced at his team lying
on the floor around him, sleeping. This was a moment of luxury. He closed his
eyes, then rested his head against the wall. Finding comfort in the fact that
he was surrounded by the deadliest men on the planet, he fell into a much
needed sleep.
#
He was
having
a wonderful dream—the happiest,
perhaps the best he had ever had—and then it went away when an alien sound
brought him back to a baffling awareness. Pope Pius XIII finally opened his
eyes, his lids fluttering—the world, the ceiling, still clouded from a
drug-induced haze. And then he realized that he was no longer in a wonderful
dreamscape, but awake in a large room choked with dust and darkness. The
internal walls were gutted, revealing bare studs underneath, and the floor was
trashed with broken plaster, litter and waste. Here was abandonment.
When he turned over on the
mattress he could feel the weight of the chains that shackled him to the brick
wall. On the other side of the mattress lay a coffee can to accept his bodily
wastes during his confinement.
The pope propped himself up on his
elbows and tested the strength of the chain by tugging at the mooring. The
links rattled like a pocketful of coins, but the chain held firm.
“I’m afraid it’s no use. The
plates are anchored firmly to the brick.”
Pope Pius XIII narrowed his eyes
in an attempt to pierce the darkness. What his sight finally settled on was the
vague outline of a man, standing against the opposite wall. If the man had
chosen not to speak, the pope would never have known he was there.
The figure stepped into a shaft of
wan light, with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a black tactical
jumpsuit, a black ski mask, and combat boots. “How are you feeling?” the man
asked, speaking in a clipped accent.
Pope Pius XIII raised his bony
hand, the chained hand, the movement itself imploring and fragile. “Please,” he
said. “Why are you doing this?”
The shape took a step closer, the
toes of his boots nearly touching the edge of the pope’s mattress. “I do this,”
he answered, “to end the madness once and for all.”
The pope gave him an inquisitive
look.
“Whereas your Christ was the King
of Kings who readily embraced the world, Pope Pius XIII shall become the Martyr
of Martyrs who will divide it.” The shape took a step back and was again
swallowed in darkness. “You will be the catalyst for the beginning of the end.”
The pope was unable to grasp the
meaning of what was being said, the words cryptic, the voice hollow and growing
distant. The shape spoke in riddles, while his mind was still numb from the
ketamine in his system.
“I don’t understand.”
The shape illuminated one thing
further. “Tomorrow you will begin to usher in a new age,” he said.
And like a wispy comma of smoke in
a blowing wind, the shape was gone.
Team
Leader made it a point to separate the pope from the bishops of the Holy See
and the governor. He wished to evaluate each man on his own mettle, without any
support, encouragement, or comfort from the pope.
He wanted to see if the bishops
truly believed in a paradisiacal afterlife, if they would readily accept death
as a graduation rather than the end. He would watch them with studious
appraisal to see if their eyes reflected hypocrisy or genuine belief in the
moments before he pulled the trigger. In this fashion Team Leader was an
observer, a scientist, a searcher for truth. Does an afterlife of absolute
peace and tranquility exist? And is blind faith the wings that carry humankind
to such a place? If he could discover the truth, he would gladly surrender to
it.
But Team Leader had grown tired;
his searching always ended in disappointment. He had seen nothing more than
cowardice in the faces of all the men he had killed. Still, he searched for a
spark of hope that a better life than this existed.
Everybody wants to go to
heaven
, he considered,
but nobody wants to pay the price of admission.
Shaking his head in
disappointment, Team Leader walked into the dank and hollow corridor. In the
slivers of fading light that penetrated the edges of the boarded-up windows, he
walked to the room where his team had anchored the governor and the bishops of
the Holy See to a wall with lengths of chain. The stench of their filth hung on
their garments and in the air, constant and unyielding.
On the mattresses, still affected
by the sedative, the bishops were moving humorously about like corpses in a
George Romero film, as they reached mindlessly for the purchase of something
not there. On the last mattress lay the governor, a silver thread of drool
spilling from the corner of his lips as he lay unmoving.
“Tomorrow, my dear governor,”
whispered Team Leader, “we’ll start with you and write a new chapter of
history.” And then he turned to wake his team from their short, but granted
time for rest.
Washington, D.C.
September 23, Late Evening
The
distance between the Archdiocese of Washington and the Sacred Hearts Church was
less than a mile. The Vatican Knights walked through the soup of an early morning
fog, their footfalls quiet and catlike.
When they arrived, the church’s
brownstone walls bore the greasy sheen of wetness. The stained-glass windows
emitted a faint glow from candles burning within, flickering with the rhythm of
a heartbeat.
When they stepped inside the
church, the fog did not follow, as if the hallowed interior prohibited its
wisps. Kimball closed the door, the snicker of the bolt echoing throughout the
church.
The church’s interior was a
magnificent blend of Gothic and Baroque design with a few medieval touches. The
altar, adorned with alabaster statues of angels and cherubs taking flight above
a crucified Christ, served as the focal point. The surrounding rows of pews
remained empty and waiting.
Kneeling before the altar, Father
Juan Medeiros, in full vestments, prayed silently with his head bowed, his lips
moving and his hands held together. When finished, he gained his feet, gave the
sign of the cross, and turned toward the Vatican Knights, who stood in the
shadows by the archway.
“How can I help you at so late an
hour, my brothers?”
Kimball stepped into the sallow
light, the candles’ flames throwing odd shadows along the walls as he and the
other Knights made their way to the altar.
“You would be Cardinal Medeiros?”
asked Kimball.
Medeiros came forward and lifted
the sleeve of his cleric robe to offer a hand. “Kimball Hayden. I’ve been
expecting you,” he said.
“And this is my unit.”
Cardinal Medeiros smiled, his face
hardly seamed by age. “Yes, of course,” he acknowledged. He observed the
Knights’ black berets, each bearing an embroidered coat of arms, the symbol of
their unit.
“Please,” he said, pointing toward
the rear of the altar, “this way. We’ve much to do and talk about.”
The Knights followed the priest
through a warren of hallways to a door. Crossing the threshold, they descended
a staircase, then maneuvered through a dank corridor cluttered with discarded
furniture destined for Goodwill Industries. Finally, they halted before a metal
fire door.
“No doubt Cardinal Vessucci has
told you of my position here in the States.”
Kimball shook his head. “Only that
we were to contact you for intel, nothing more.”
The cardinal felt slighted at
being identified as “nothing more” than an intel source, but he said nothing.
To the left of the fire door,
Cardinal Medeiros typed in a numeric code on a keypad, which drew back an
electronic bolt. When the door opened, the men descended another set of stairs
leading into sepulchral darkness. With every step the air became noticeably cooler
and damper, carrying the smell of must and earth. At the bottom of the
stairwell was a brownstone wall with several outcroppings of fieldstone
arranged like diamonds set within a pendant. Prudently, Cardinal Medeiros began
to push certain stones while ignoring others, causing the false wall to slide
inward and grate against the concrete floor.
“The stones act as a
combination,” he said. “It’s a safeguard against unwanted entry. Very few
people are authorized to see what’s in this room.”
Once the wall closed behind them,
the darkness becoming complete, Cardinal Medeiros called out a voice command
and tracks of bright fluorescent light flicked on, illuminating a room with
antiseptically clean white walls. Behind numerous glass cases were a displayed
range of weapons, from handguns to automatic rifles. Some of these were
modified firearms, unrecognizable even to Kimball, who considered himself an
authority on weaponry.
Kimball and the rest of the team
moved toward the displays, mesmerized by the quantity of weapons. In several
display cases were state-of-the-art Kevlar vests, engineered with fiber
resilient enough to stop high-caliber bullets. In the center of each vest was
the embroidered coat of arms of the Vatican Knights. Other cases held headgear,
laser sights, double-edged weapons, gadgetry and attachments. To the company of
soldiers, the chamber seemed more like a museum than an armory.
“This, my friends, is what I do,”
said Medeiros. He walked along the displays with satisfaction. “You’ll find
that for this mission the HK XM8 with the baseline carbine and common
side-loading 40-millimeter X320 grenade launcher will suffice. The weapon can
be quickly modified to a compact carbine, a sharpshooter variant, or an
automatic rifle, depending upon your needs. The only drawback is that you must
carry all the segments with you to make the necessary adjustments.”
Kimball examined the myriad
displays of weaponry and turned to Medeiros. “You engineered these?”
“Not the HK XM8,” he answered.
“But most of the others that you see here.” The priest traced a finger along a
glass case featuring his designs. “Like you, Kimball, I am a former covert
operator, but now my skills are employed to craft the instruments you use.” And
then he sighed, almost dreamily. “My years of soldiering are long behind me.”
Kimball thought he picked up a sorrowful hint in the man’s tone. “Now I
engineer weapons of defense for the Society of Seven.”
“I didn’t know the Society of
Seven had any say in weapons development.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot that goes
on within the Vatican that you and I don’t know about,” Medeiros said. Then,
after sliding back a glass panel to access the HK XM8s, he said, “As you know,
the Society of Seven is the Pope’s true line of defense. Although the Swiss Guard
is the official army that protects the fortress of the Vatican, it is the
Vatican Knights who are considered a very special group with very special
needs. Therefore…” He let his words trail as he held out his hand toward the
exhibit. “Your special needs.”
Suddenly, the cardinal became
somber. “If the pope is killed,” he said gravely, “the world will truly be
divided.”
Kimball understood. If the pope
was killed, he would become a martyr, dividing Christians and Muslims, almost
certainly triggering retaliatory attacks, and putting people of all faiths in
danger.
“For the sake of everybody on this
planet, Kimball, bring him back.”
“I will.”
Within an hour the Knights had
received their equipment and learned to break down and reassemble the modified
HK XM8 with little effort. When his team was geared and ready, Kimball
proffered a hand to Cardinal Medeiros.
“Remember, Kimball, do what is
necessary to accomplish our goal . . . bring him back.” Medeiros lowered his
hand. His face now appeared haggard beneath the lights, the deepening shadows
under his eyes giving him the look of a man aging by the minute.
“Now for the details,” said
Medeiros. “The powers that be have assigned Billy Paxton of the FBI to
negotiate with the Soldiers of Islam, but our sources say that Shari Cohen is
the true head of the investigation over at the Bureau. She’s the one you need
to contact, Kimball. She’s the one you need to create an alliance with.”
Medeiros handed over a dossier. “Everything you need to know about her is in
there.”
Kimball glanced over the pages of
text, then over the eight-by-ten photo. He noted Shari’s almond-shaped eyes,
her smooth features, and how her widow’s peak came to a point on her forehead.
After a moment, he closed the file.
“God be with you, Kimball. And
good luck.”
In a unified act, each Vatican
Knight placed a closed fist over his heart, bowed his head, and got on bended
knee. “Loyalty above all else,” they said, “except Honor.”
With another blessing from
Cardinal Medeiros, the Vatican Knights left the church, disappearing into a
living fog that immediately enveloped them.