The Vatican Knights

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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.