Shepherd One

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When Dr. Ray Simone attended Harvard University and spent the majority of his time working at the Science Center, he fell in love with something more than just his work, though most people thought it impossible, given his academic acuity that nothing truly existed beyond the world of academia.

But there was.

Her name was Tia-Marie Castellano. By most standards she was not pretty. Nor was she displeasing to look at. She was, however, an academic with a thin face and soft brown eyes that appeared too close together. And whenever she parted her lips to display slightly irregular teeth, her face beamed with the afterglow and warmth. It was the little things about her that drove him pleasantly and deliriously crazy with desire, such as the way she cocked her head in that silly little slant of hers, or the way she held that odd look of trying to analyze a problem but couldn’t quite grasp an immediate solution. In time they gravitated toward each other, two unique people who found comfort in each other’s interests — talking about atoms and flows and theories that drove most people from the room. And in the course of human primal urges, uncovered a world beyond the pages of books and discovered each other romantically. She was his only woman, and he her only man.

Three years into their relationship and having moved on from Harvard, she began to act differently, her mood shifting with sudden changes and becoming prone to rages and bouts of impatience, then fits of severe depression. In the apartment they shared in Boston she often flew into unprovoked rages, which convinced him that she was suffering from bipolar disorder. That changed, however, when she began to slur her speech, her words coming forward in drunken effect.

Within a week of testing, a diagnosis confirmed a tumor on the amygdala portion of her brain, which controlled the emotions of fear and aggression. And with all the intellect between them, there was nothing either could do to save her. Her life was ending due to malignant cells running wild.

Almost two months later she was gone.

And he wept.

And he mourned.

And he continued to think of her constantly.

If she was at Area 4 right now, there was no doubt in his mind that she would have found the solution to disable the payload circling above Los Angeles. As intellectually stellar as Tia-Marie was, however, her only setback, at least in his eyes, was that she lacked common sense.

One night while driving through Roxbury, one of Boston’s seedier suburbs, she noted the black markings of graffiti on a block wall, prompting a comment that the walls should be painted black, so that no one could write graffiti on them. And he could remember his response clearly: ‘Then all they would have to do is write with white paint. Black paint does not wash things away forever.’ And for some odd reason she thought that was the greatest solution to a marginal problem. To him it was simply common sense. To her it was something that never entered her mind because the matter did not prove to be highly analytical. And for the rest of the evening she continued to tell him how brilliant she thought his answer was — which really wasn’t brilliant at all. Just something he noted with little consideration.

And then a thought struck him as he sat next to his locker staring at an aged and creased photo of Tia-Marie. She had seen the world differently than he did, with fewer dimensions and more of a straight-on and singular approach, reminding him that his world possessed a negative side to her positive, black verses white. He viewed the situation of Shepherd One being the black wall, and tried to find the solution with white paint. She viewed the white wall in Roxbury with black paint, the other side of the spectrum

Of course!

For hours he was trying to figure out a way to breach the payload’s brain by initiating a virus through the altimeter to kill the CPU. But what if he looked at the situation as the white wall, like Tia-Marie? What if he looked at the altimeter instead of the CPU? He could readily access the altimeter and reprogram its detonation attitude to as low as 10 feet above sea level, not the 10,000 feet it was locked in at. The CPU would still read the memory as being active since a numerical balance of attitude remained, but could only detonate at 10 feet. Surely the sea level of LAX was above that.

Dr. Simone kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them endearingly against the faded photo of his one-time love, quickly recalling a Simone-ism he created for her upon the moment of her death. Soul-mate: Two people who are forever linked by unconditional love, never sees fault in the follies of their loved one, and is willing to self-sacrifice their personal needs for the welfare of their companion without consideration of their own consequences. It is a connection that is timeless and cannot be cut off by distance or events. It’s a connection that takes a moment to create, but exists for a lifetime.

“Thank you,” he whispered. You always did show me the way.

After that he sprinted to the lab.

In the inconstant light provided from the flicking bulbs on the Avionics board, Kimball could hardly see the keypad of the laptop as he typed a message to the Vatican.

As the plane took its rises and falls, making the situation much more difficult to manage, he was able to type a message to Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci.

And then he hit the ‘SEND’ button, the screen reading MESSAGE SENT.

In a restricted chamber situated beneath the Basilica, seven chairs were situated on a marble platform rising four feet from the floor. The pope’s chair, a king’s throne layered in gold leaf with carvings of winged cherubs and angels, sat vacant. The six corresponding chairs were less imaginative; three to each side of the pontiff’s centered seat were quasi-thrones occupied by the remaining members of the Society of Seven, all dressed in full regalia.

The hall was grand, ancient, an underground recess where past popes and their secret allegiances met time and again. The walls were made of lime, the ceiling vaulted and supported by massive Romanesque columns, and the acoustics were poor, words often traveling across the room as echoes. The only light provided came from the gas-lit lamps moored along the walls, giving the room a medieval cast to it.

As the Society of Seven waited an echoing cadence of footfalls sounded from beyond the chamber door, the pace quick with urgency and the steps weighted as if something colossal was making its way toward the sequestered room. From the opposite end of the chamber a door of solid oak labored on its hinges as a man of incredible height and stature walked toward the platform with a gait and bearing that spoke of power and self-assurance. His shoulders were broad, his massive chest and arms denoting atypical strength with the facial features of a warrior scarred in combat. When he reached the base of the staging area he removed his beret, dropped to a knee, and placed a closed fist over his heart.

“Loyalty above all else,” he said, “except Honor.” This was the salute of the Vatican Knights.

Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci remained seated, as did the rest of the cardinals who watched Leviticus from their raised vantage point.

“Stand, my friend,” said Vessucci. “We’ve received word from Kimball for which you are to be the recipient of.”

Leviticus, a smaller facsimile of Kimball, stood to his full height. “And what has become of Pope Pius and Shepherd One?” he asked.

“For that, there is nothing any of us can do,” he returned. “For the moment the pope is alive and well. And Kimball is doing what he can from his end. But I’m afraid the odds are not in anyone’s favor but the terrorists.”

The shadow lines on Leviticus’s face undulated with the movement of the torches’ flames, his features coming alive when, in fact, he remained neutral.

“You, my friend,” said Cardinal Vessucci, standing, the sleeves of his garment sliding to his elbows as he clasped his hands in an attitude of prayer, then made his way to the edge of the stage. “Kimball has sent word that the family of the pilot flying Shepherd One is being held against their wishes, either in the Ponte Felcino Mosque in Perugia or the old abandoned factory that borders the city. We need you to find them,” he said, “and bring them back well. There may be nothing we can do for the pope. But we can at least provide Enzio with the peace of mind that his family is safe, if something should happen to Shepherd One.”

“The Ponte Felcino Mosque is under tight security,” he said. “Getting in won’t be easy.”

“No, it won’t. But the probability of them being housed inside the old factory is more practical, since the Italian government has been keeping the mosque under close surveillance ever since it was raided a few years ago for terrorist insurgency. And it is for this reason we believe the clerics wouldn’t risk the future sovereignty of the temple, if this was discovered.” The cardinal turned and labored away from the edge of the stage, his steps choppy, and took his rightful seat next to the papal throne. “Therefore, you will begin with the factory,” he said.

Leviticus bowed his head. “Understood.”

“Leviticus, please be discreet in your dealings as much as possible. War is war, we understand this. But if something tragic should occur, then the Vatican will have no choice but to disavow any knowledge of the Knights since we cannot afford any unwanted attention toward the Church.”

Again: “Understood.”

“Then bring them back, my friend. And with the blessing of God,” he gave the sign of the cross, “and with the blessing of the Society of Seven, be it known that the Church holds faith in those who believe in true righteousness.”

Leviticus got to a knee and placed a closed fist over his heart. “Loyalty above all else,” he said, “except Honor.”

The cardinals stood, an act of homage, each man placing a closed fist over their hearts. In unison they praised the Vatican Knight in perfect concert. “Loyalty above all else,” they said, “except Honor.”

Leviticus stood, turned, and walked away from the cardinals with his footsteps echoing off the ancient stone walls in haunting cadence.

Dr. Simone took careful effort to avoid the roving laser grid inside the unit by precisely cutting an oblong hole in the case with a laser that allowed minimal passage to the underside port of the altimeter, which led to its processing unit. With a mechanical arm and its automated hand, the end of the relay connection was carefully guided by the hand-clamps which inserted the cable from the facility’s mainframe to the altimeter, securing a linkup.

Immediately the large screen against the wall showed a series of binary numbers, a primitive code, the series easily altered or manipulated to raise or lower the altitude range. The code was a simplistic form of figures provided by the BlackBerry’s minimal capability to supply complex data to the CPU.

With the seasoned skill of a programmer, the binary code was reconfigured with mock courses running on the screen to see if the newly encoded instructions could lower the altitude score. On the monitor it did, going as low as one foot above sea level. The CPU in the weapon continued to maintain its memory read.

He then reconfigured the data to be programmed into the altimeter and hesitated before depressing the ‘SEND’ button. Although the unit was considered dead because the activation code was never fully entered, and with the exception of setting the weapon off by breaking the snare of the roving laser grid, which was not going to happen, he couldn’t help wonder if there was another catch hidden somewhere within. Something he didn’t know about.

Taking in a long breath and letting it out with an equally long sigh. He looked around the lab, which was as vacant.

And then he pressed the button, the informational relay going through.

The numbers in the altimeter’s readout window started to move downward from the 10,000 foot mark and rapidly picked up pace, the digits then moving so fast they could not be discernible from one numeral to the next. And then the pace slowed at a hundred feet and more so at ninety. It finally stopped at ten feet above sea level.

Simone smiled and nodded in approval. “Gotcha,” he said. He immediately contacted the president.

“I can’t fully disable the weapons,” said Simone from the viewing monitor, “but I can certainly reconfigure the data to well below the ten-thousand-foot mark so that Shepherd One can land at LAX.”

The president sat with his hands and fingers tented, his eyes staring with a marginal spark of hope. “How?” he asked.

“All this time I’ve been looking at the approach by attacking the main CPU in the device when I should have been looking at it from other points as well — white wall, black paint; black wall, white paint.”

The president appeared mystified. “What?”

“I’ve approached this from the wrong angle,” he said. “Instead of disabling the weapon’s CPU system, why not modify the readings on the altimeter?”

The president eased forward in his seat. “Can it be done?”

On the screen Simone presented a brash smile. “I’ve already done it,” he told him. “I brought the readings down to ten feet. And LAX is one hundred twenty-six glorious feet above sea level.”

“I see,” said the president, falling back. “But how do you propose to do that, Ray, when the units you need to reconfigure are flying over LA?”

Simone’s smile abruptly left him. He’d been so enthusiastic about his discovery that he forgot a way to apply the breakthrough.

“Ray?”

“I would have to send the data to someone on board,” he said. “And they would have to connect a laptop to the unit. At that point I would forward the programming that would feed the figures to the altimeter’s CPU.”

“And who do you propose that be, Ray, since everyone on board is being held captive? You think maybe a terrorist would oblige us?”

Simone did not like the condescending tone of the president’s voice, and answered with his own brand of guided annoyance. “Mr. President, you asked me to find that Achilles’ Heel, which I did. Right now I have come up with the answer to land Shepherd One at LAX without the consequences of the nukes going off. If I’ve failed you, then I apologize for my lack of effort to find the proper solution.”

Burroughs raised his hands, as if conceding. “Listen, Ray, I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did, so please don’t take it personally. Everybody here is in stress mode and even though I appreciate your efforts, the fact remains that your findings cannot be applied unless someone on board Shepherd One can do it manually, correct?”

“That’s correct — yes.”

“So tell me, is there another way to alter the readings on the altimeters?”

“Not unless somebody onboard does it.”

“And there within lies the problem,” said the president. “We have no one on board.”