The Iscariot Agenda

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

When Jeff finished packing the duffel bag and with Kimball standing idly by, the former assassin hoisted the duffel over his shoulder and stood before his former teammate, their eyes locking on to each other not so much as macho posturing, but knowing this would be the last time they saw each other, the last of a dying breed.

“I know it didn’t seem like it, but it was kinda good to see you again,” he told Kimball. “You stirred up old memories. Good memories. And I’m not talking about the killing, either. I’m talking about the times we all hung out together as a family, since we didn’t have anyone besides ourselves. You, me, my brother, Hawk — everyone.” The corners of his lips rounded upward into a marginal smile. “Even that crazy Irishman,” he added. And then the smile was gone.

Kimball took a step forward and undid the arms he had crossed around his chest. “Where will you go?” he asked.

Jeff headed quickly out of the Vault and made his way to the stairwell. Kimball followed close behind.

“I have accounts all over the world, which is to say that I’m set for the rest of my life. So I’ll probably go somewhere nice. Somewhere tropical where the women don’t have to wear their bikini tops because the weather’s too nice and it’s not against the law.” And then, with far more seriousness in the tone of his voice: “Somewhere where he can’t get to me.”

Kimball knew he was referring to the assassin. “Stay safe.”

“Trust me. I plan to.”

When they reached the top level of the shop Jeff placed the duffel bag on the floor and went to the keypad next to the security door. With lightning strikes of his fingers, he tapped in a code against the numeric keys and the bars retracted from the door, unlocking it.

As the door automatically opened with mechanical slowness behind him, he surveyed the shop one last moment, absorbing the moments he and his brother shared here. It was dirty. It was dingy. But it was theirs and it was home.

Without turning to Kimball, he said, “And what about you? Are you going back to the Church?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy there?”

“I am.”

Jeff closed his eyes, the download of this memory complete. Then: “I’m glad for you,” he finally told him.

As Jeff stood in the doorway facing the truck and with his back to Kimball, he said, “We don’t stand a chance, do we?”

“There’s always a chance.”

Even though Kimball could not see it from where he stood, Jeff feigned a smile. “Well, at least these guns in my duffel will double my chances against him, don’t you think?”

Kimball didn’t answer.

So Jeff answered for him. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d agree with that,” he said.

Jeff went into the alleyway, unlocked and opened the door to his pickup, tossed his duffel bag into the rear of the truck, got inside, situated himself, and then rolled the window down. For a long moment he sat there and stared straight ahead, saying nothing. But before too long he faced Kimball with his hard-lined features bearing no sense of emotion — good, bad or indifferent. “One thing’s for absolute certain,” he finally said. “No matter what you’re doing with the Church or how long you wear the collar, I’ll see you again, Kimball. Only I’ll see you in Hell. And that’s a fact.”

With that Jeff toggled the button and the electric window rolled up between them.

After the assassin fired the shot that killed Stanley Hardwick, he calmly broke down the rifle with quick efficiency, then headed for his vehicle and engaged the GPS monitoring system just in case Kimball and Jeff Hardwick decided to alter their return course, which they didn’t.

Without a doubt he knew they had killed the senator, an added plus to the entire agenda. And then he followed them right to their Baltimore door with them most likely coming to the realization that there was a GPS frequency module attached to the vehicle.

But that wasn’t the only thing attached.

From his vantage point on a wrought-iron landing of a fire escape less than a half a block away, the assassin had a clear view of the pickup.

In his hand was a metal box, silver, about the size of a cigarette pack. When he saw Jeff leave the store and head for the truck, the assassin raised the four-inch aerial, lifted the protective plastic covering the button, and placed the pad of his thumb on the button.

With the patience of a saint, he waited.

As the window of the pickup rolled up, Kimball stepped closer to the doorway, closer to the alley, their eyes locking for the last time.

Standing at the threshold, Kimball’s mind toiled with the thought of seeing Jeffrey Hardwick in Hell. And he had to wonder: Was the man right in assessing Kimball’s mission for deliverance something unattainable? Had he already secured his fate by the actions of his past? Certainly this was what Jeff was alluding to. But Kimball had come to realize long ago that for every two steps taken toward redemption, there will always be someone there to knock him back. But that was all right since success did not come without struggle. His reaction to Jeff’s statement was to simply smile back.

When the window rolled up to its full extent, Jeff reached forward to place the key into the ignition. Attached to the dash, however, by tape, was a scroll. Jeff peeled it away and began to unfurl the material. As he did, he saw that it was a photo of his old unit, the faces clearly circled in red, the letters clearly visible. In the red circle surrounding his face was the letter ‘O.’

The assassin was here — inside the cab!

Oh, no!

Jeff tossed the photo aside and immediately rushed to panic as he tried to disengage the seatbelt to exit the vehicle, the one-time elite commando whimpering like an abandoned puppy.

His hands moved quickly, the thumb pressing the latch.

Nothing.

He then pulled at the belt, slapped the button, tugged at the strap. And then his heart began to race and thump, his blood coursing with speed induced by adrenaline. The roar of blood-rushing thunder now reached his ears, causing him to grow deaf to anything beyond the center of his world. Panic was setting in, his sight going red at the periphery and closing in.

The latch was jammed.

And he saw the reason why.

There was a piece of metal jamming the mechanism. It was rigged that once the belt was clipped in, then it was nearly impossible to undo.

And then he remembered.

His knife!

But the moment his fingers touched the hilt he heard an audible click — and then the whine of something gearing up. It was a sound he heard many times before with explosive devices.

Now it had become the sound of his life coming to a quick and bloody end.

Taking his fingers off the hilt of his knife, Jeffrey Hardwick turned and looked out the window one last time. The last image he would ever take in would be that of Kimball Hayden standing in the doorway of the surplus store. And oddly enough a single thought came to his mind: The priest who is not a priest.

With that his world became a white-hot flash as flames poured into the truck from the ventilation systems, engulfing him, the incredible heat quickly building to the point that the pickup’s tempered glass exploded outward in all directions. And then the enormous explosion— the yellow mass of hot flame boiling upward into a fireball, the vehicle then taking flight and performing a fiery cartwheel before coming down as scorched metal, the flames continuing to fan outward from the charred debris.

From the sky a flaming photo seesawed back to Earth, the edges burning inward. When it landed on the ground the flames consumed its entirety until there was nothing left but ashes that would eventually be cast aside by the wind.

If it had remained, anyone would have seen the red circle surrounding the face of the last man in the photo.

Time can be measured in milliseconds and perhaps even quicker — and sometimes much too fast for the human mind to react, even in self-preservation.

As Kimball stood in the doorway mulling over Jeff’s parting comment, he observed the former assassin pick something up inside the vehicle’s cab — a piece of paper by the looks of it — and examined it. Suddenly he galvanized himself by moving with a sudden quickness, his hands searching for the release of the belt, then pounding the assemblage — once, twice, three times.

And then he stopped.

He turned to Kimball, his face and eyes bearing the telltale signs of what Kimball thought he would never see on the face of a Hardwick brother. It was the look of a man realizing that his life was about to end and there was nothing in his power to grant him a reprieve. All that was left was undeniable fear.

Their eyes met briefly.

And then the cacophony of the white-hot explosion immediately followed by force of the concussion. The energy had driven Kimball off his feet and projected him through the air until he collided with the wall, the impact of the collision leaving an indented impression of his backside in the drywall. Getting to his feet, and with the wind knocked out of him and his world a blur of double vision, Kimball looked as if he had risen from ashes that were the color of moon dust as he stood there not truly cognizant of where he was or what just happened. As his surroundings became a little more balanced, with the taste of blood and copper in his mouth, Kimball made his way to the door the same way a man fights his way through a desert sandstorm — with his hands before him while marching laboriously forward against buffeting winds.

He then grabbed the edges of the doorway and used them as a crutch, the sensation of incredible heat suddenly striking him and forcing him to retreat. From his point he could hear the loud crackle of flames as the truck burned. Behind the wheel sat the blackened remains of Jeffrey Hardwick, his skin consumed to the point where the formation of bones was already beginning to appear.

Kimball stumbled deeper into the store, his stomach now rolling into a slick fist as nausea from the trauma of striking the wall with such force overtook him. Taking deep breaths with his hand held over his abdomen, the feeling subsided.

Removing his cell phone from his cargo pants, he dialed a quick-dial number and waited until he received an answer.

It was Cardinal Vessucci.

“They’re all gone,” said Kimball.

To the cardinal, even over a long distance, could tell that Kimball appeared out of breath. “Are you all right?”

“They’re all gone,” he repeated. “He got them all, Bonasero. I’m the last one. I’m all that’s left.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine… Just a little winded, that’s all.”

Outside, the flames continued to crackle loudly.

“What’s that?”

“Just a little bonfire, which Jeffrey Hardwick happens to be a participant of.”

“Oh, no.”

“He’s still out there, Bonasero. He’s still coming.”

“Then come home, Kimball.”

“If I do that, then I won’t be coming back alone. He’ll follow me and we’ll bring this war to the Vatican, which I’m not willing to do.”

“We found Job. He’s here. Joshua and Ezekiel will be back shortly from sabbatical. By the time you get here you’ll have their backing. One assassin against four Vatican Knights favors you greatly.”

“I don’t want anyone else hurt,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this guy. He’s as lethal as anyone I have ever seen.”

“Kimball… Come home.”

“I’m not sure I want to do that.”

In the distance was the sound of sirens, the authorities getting closer. Kimball, phone still to his ear, forced his way past the heat and onto the street.

“Kimball, come home. Although Amerigo won’t admit it, he’s getting worse by the day. You need to see him.”

“How long does he have?”

“The doctor said months — three, maybe four at the most. But who knows. At this rate…”

“Even with chemo and radiation?”

“He’s rejecting all forms of treatment. He simply wants to expire as God intended him to.”

Kimball sounded agitated. “Did it ever occur to him that maybe doctors were placed here by God to help him live longer?”

“I know you’re angry, Kimball. But what kind of a life would he lead only to suffer the last few moments of his life bedridden and sedated to the point that he was no longer aware of his surroundings?”

When the sirens and lights from police and ambulatory vehicles rounded the bend, Kimball fell back into the shadows until the vehicles passed him by.

And then: “He wants to go to his Heavenly Father on His terms, not his own.”

Kimball had to forcibly choke back the sting of tears. Besides Cardinal Vessucci and a few others, Pope Pius XIII had become his most unfaltering supporter believing that the Light was well within Kimball’s reach, should he decide to follow its path. He had forgiven Kimball for his indiscretions and loved him like a son. And Kimball had loved him deeply like a father. Having one of the most significant men in the world believe in you when you did not believe in yourself spoke volumes. And Kimball was crushed.

“I didn’t mean to snap,” he finally said.

“It’s understandable. We all love him and he will be missed.”

Kimball stood looking at the glow rising from behind the building like a halo. “I’m coming home,” he said distantly.

“He’ll be happy to see you.”

And that was the breaking point for Kimball as he could no longer hold back the tears. And for a second time within days tears began to flow, although they did so without him breaking into racking sobs.

“Kimball?”

He closed his eyes in an effort to blink back the rest of the tears. “I’m here,” he said, his voice managing to stay even. “But I’m most likely bringing the war back with me.”

“Then we’ll be waiting.”

After the explosion set the vehicle in flight in spectacular motion, he lowered the aerial and let the plastic cap fall over the button. From his perch he watched the fires burn, thinking there was something quite hypnotic about them, a certain graceful quality about the way the flames danced with a life of their own. Nevertheless, he reveled in the fact that he formerly introduced Jeffrey Hardwick to a short dose of what was waiting for him in Hell.

This he was sure of.

When the sirens began to sound off in the background, just as he was about to take flight, he saw Kimball Hayden exit the building and take flight on his own. The man looked disheveled and completely disoriented, his gait more like a man in a drunken stupor. Within a few moments, however, he seemed to have gathered himself and appeared unharmed, the large man rushing for the shadows.

That’s good, thought the assassin. Kimball Hayden survived the blast after all. Now with Kimball as the last man standing, and after watching those around him fall, which no doubt cast an air of his own infallibility, the assassin wondered if he was breaking him down mentally, as well. Killing Kimball Hayden had now become optimum.

Taking in a deep breath, with the smell of fire and ash heavy in the air, the assassin watched Kimball as he disappeared in the shadows. No matter what, he told himself, I will follow you to the very stretches of your run and finalize my crusade by driving a knife across your throat. And when I stand over you and watch you bleed out, then, and only then, will I smile the moment the spark of your life finally fades away.

And true to his word, the assassin gave chase.