The Iscariot Agenda

CHAPTER FIFTY

Inside the office of Monsignor Dom Giammacio, the air hazy with cigarette smoke, Kimball sat in his rightful chair as the monsignor waited for him to galvanize the dialogue.

This had been the first visit since the incident in Necropolis when the point of the pick missed Kimball’s heart by less than four inches. The tip, however, wedged deep and perforated his lung, causing blood to fill the sack as if it was a bladder. Along with his other wounds he was incapacitated for weeks, moving in and out of fevers as infections came and went.

Now that he rebounded to the point of mobility, he still felt sore, his breathing sometimes labored. But it was his emotions that panged him more; the loss of Pope Pius and the betrayal of Ezekiel.

Kimball raised his hand and began to rub the throb in his forearm where the Chinese star broke the bone, which had to be pieced together by pins and screws.

“Are you still ailing?” asked the monsignor.

Kimball stopped rubbing. “I’ll be fine,” he told him. And then he fell back to his stoic manner.

“Kimball, I’m sorry about the loss of Pope Pius,” he began. “His loss has struck all of us who knew him well. But you, in particular, appear to hold a deeper lament. We can talk about it if you want.”

“It’s not just him, Padre. There are other issues involved.”

“Such as what went on in Necropolis?”

“That’s part of it.”

The monsignor leaned closer. “Are you sure it’s not most of it?”

Kimball gave him a sidelong glance. “Have you ever been betrayed?”

The monsignor seemed to muse over this for a moment, and then, “I’m sure I have been.”

“Have you ever grown close to someone that you may have considered being a part of you like a son?”

“No.”

Kimball looked away, his eyes growing distant, detached, his mind visualizing something only he could see. “Do you know what happened in the Necropolis?”

“I know you were severely injured down there. I believe you received a broken arm and perforated lung for your efforts in saving the good Cardinal Vessucci.”

“The cardinal was never in jeopardy,” he said. “It was all about me. I was being tested.”

“By the one who tried to kill you?”

“By him, by God, by me — it was all about seeing if I had the true ability to change.”

“To change?”

Kimball nodded. “The last time we met you told me that redemption was within my grasp because I had become something different than what I used to be. You said that I killed because I wanted to, but now I kill because I have to… And there lies the difference between the darkness and light.”

“I remember.”

“In the Necropolis, when I learned that I was betrayed by someone very close to me and that forgiveness was entirely impossible, I felt something very familiar.”

“And what was that?”

Kimball faced him. “I learned that I hadn’t changed at all,” he told him. “I’ve only been hiding what was always there… The truth.”

The monsignor grabbed his pack of cigarettes, shook a smoke free, lit it, and then waved the match dead before tossing it into the ashtray. “And what is this truth, Kimball?”

He hesitated, his eyes once again growing distant.

“Kimball, what is the truth?” he repeated.

“That I’ve been living a lie,” he answered. “That salvation will never be within reach no matter how hard I try to obtain it because the fact is what it is.”

“And what is the fact?”

“That I kill because I want to, not because I have to.”

“Have you killed anyone because you want to?”

“No.”

“But because you had to?”

“Yes. But it doesn’t take away from the one thing I want most in my life right now.”

“And what is that?”

“I want to kill Ezekiel,” he said.

“Is this the one who betrayed you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you looked deeper into yourself, Kimball? Have you looked far enough to realize that your emotional wounds run much deeper than your physical ones, and that your anger over the betrayal is misdirecting your sense of logic and reason?”

“I won’t justify what I feel, Monsignor, by saying that it’s all right to feel the way I do because I’m angry. He murdered those close to me because of a personal hatred directed at me. He deserves what’s coming to him.”

The monsignor leaned back. “Are you going after him?”

“If I don’t, then he’ll come after me.”

“Perhaps he won’t.”

“With all due respect, Padre, you obviously have never felt the insatiable need to want to kill. I have it. He has it. And until we meet, it’ll just feed until it drives us both crazy.”

“And how do you think Pope Pius would have felt?”

Kimball’s face dropped a notch, the beginnings of sadness and disappointment. “Amerigo’s gone,” he finally said.

“Do you believe he watches over us?”

“Don’t do me like that! No guilt trips! I can’t help what I am!”

“Then what about Cardinal Vessucci? Did he not see in you the man you failed to see in yourself?”

“I failed to see the man he saw because no such man exists! I kill, Padre. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at.”

“For so long you have served the Church well. Now you have a conflict with faith and all of a sudden you’re no longer virtuous because of the anger you hold so deep.”

Kimball picked up on the Monsignor’s tone. Was that admonishment?

“You sit there forgetting all the good you have done for the Church, the lives you have saved, and the restoration within yourself that there is hope beyond the darkness that had been your life. Now after a betrayal all the good that has become your life, the light that had become your path, is gone because you cannot let go of the rage that has consumed you like a dark shroud.”

Kimball clenched his jaw, the anger working its way to the surface.

“Then perhaps you’re right,” the monsignor said, tilting his head and releasing a cloud ceilingward. “Perhaps the man in you is a killer. But do you want to know what I see. What Pope Pius and Cardinal Vessucci saw?”

Kimball’s entire body tensed.

“We saw a man whose conviction to duty was far greater than his conviction to himself. Then one day he had an epiphany and learned that his need to reach the Light of Loving Spirits was not only a necessity, but an attainable goal. What Pius saw in you, what Cardinal Vessucci saw in you, was the penchant to be what you truly are, Kimball. And that is a man who is lost and is trying to find his way.”

Kimball was beginning to settle down.

“Yes, you were betrayed. And yes, it probably won’t be the last time. But betrayal is a part of life’s lesson and we must learn from it and handle it with the will to forgive rather than the need for revenge. When you see that difference, Kimball, when the rage subsides, then I’m sure that you will once again see the Lighted Path.”

Kimball sighed. “Ezekiel’s not done with me. He’ll come back to finish his agenda.”

“Then if he comes, Kimball, his anger and hatred will surely doom him. For those who choose to remain in the dark will only find an unwanted refuge within its depths.”

Kimball stood and walked to the window. People were milling by the hundreds through St. Peter’s Square. “Losing Amerigo and Ezekiel at the same time is too much for me to handle right now,” he said.

“Psychologically speaking, Kimball, there are many phases everyone goes through when dealing with loss such as anger, sadness and disbelief — it’s all a part of the grieving process. And you’re not above that. It’s obvious to me that you’re going through the process right now. I guess that only makes you human.”

Kimball considered this. The monsignor was right about the phases. In conjunction with his anger toward Ezekiel, he had taken the pick and smashed it down to indiscernible pieces of metal with a hammer before discarding it as scrap. The pick would never serve to harm anyone again.

“Kimball?”

He called back over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Your time is almost up. Is there some other matter you wish to talk about?”

He thought about it, but came up with nothing. “No, Padre. Nothing.”

A knock came at the door.

“Excuse me,” said the monsignor, and he went to answer the door.

Kimball could hear the hushed voices behind him. His eyes still fixed on the masses moving throughout the Square.

“Kimball.”

He turned. The monsignor was standing by the doorway with a bishop who was dressed in proper attire.

“It appears that Cardinal Vessucci would like to speak with you in the Society Chamber. Do you know of such a place?”

The Society Chamber was the meeting area where the Society of Seven gathered, usually to brief him on missions. “I do.”

“Then he’ll be waiting for you there,” he said.

As Kimball was leaving, he stopped by the monsignor. “Thank you,” he whispered. And when he said this he did so with immeasurable gratitude.

“My pleasure,” he said. “And if you don’t remember anything else, please remember this: You’re right when you say you are what you are. But it’s usually the person in question who last sees himself as he truly is when others see him as he already is.”

Kimball reached up and squeezed the monsignor lightly on the shoulder. “I appreciate you trying, Monsignor. I really do. But you’re right about one thing: I am what I am.”

When Kimball walked away with determination in his swagger and a cast-solid hardness to his face, the monsignor called after him.

But Kimball ignored his pleas as hot vendetta coursed through his veins.

I am what I am.