The Vatican Knights

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Shari appeared pale when she reached her Lexus. Since being dismissed from the Oval Office, she had looked over her shoulder for someone following her. All she saw were people coming and going, never the same face, not a single person even looking in her direction, as everyone seemed preoccupied by their own circumstances.

With her hands shaking, the keys jingled as she started the car. But when her cell phone rang she jumped before picking it up. “Yes?”

“You’re clear,” the voice said. “There’s no tag behind you.”

“Are you sure?”

“No doubt about it.”

Shari’s shoulders slumped as if a great weight was lifted, but the painful muscle strain at the base of her skull continued. After pulling out of the parking space she placed the phone on speaker.

“So how’d it go?”

She set the phone on the opposite seat; her practiced eye glancing often into the rearview mirror looking for something the Vatican Knights may have missed. “I’m not sure,” she told Kimball. “Of course they dismissed it, which we knew they would. But at least the chum is in the water.”

“So who was there?”

“The norm: The president, the vice president, the attorney general, the chief advisor and two senior advisors.”

“All of whom would know about the existence of the Force Elite.”

“So it could be any one of them?”

“Or all of them.”

Shari looked into the rearview mirror and saw a van pull in behind her. “I hope that’s you.”

“It is.”

Her tension headache eased. “Let’s hope they bite, Kimball, because I’m fresh out of answers, theories and pieces of the puzzle.”

“Trust me,” he said. “If there’s a chance of exposure, they’ll send somebody and send them fast. I’m a little surprised they didn’t send along a tag.”

“Maybe they did — maybe you just don’t know it.”

“I’ve got Isaiah and Micah following me. There’s no tag.”

“Then I hope I’m not wrong about this,” she told him.

“After what happened last night, I doubt it.”

They drove on for a minute. Neither spoke. Shari looked into the rearview mirror and noted Kimball’s chiseled features, the movie-star looks. In return Kimball smiled and waved. And like a school girl caught looking at a boy she had a crush on, she immediately turned away and chided herself for making the act so obvious. She was, after all, a married woman with two children. Nevertheless, through the corner of her eye, she stole another peek.

“Kimball?”

“Yeah.”

“How safe is my home?”

“I’m thinking it’s still a hot spot.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I want them to know where they can find me.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

“I know. But at least you’ll be there.”

“We’ll all be there. Leviticus is already at the house with Nehemiah keeping it under surveillance. So far it’s clear. The audio bugs are picking up nothing inside.”

She hesitated, looked into the mirror again, then wondered if a man like him, a man considered to be without any semblance of conscience or soul or morality, had the capability of loving anybody. Was there anything remotely and truly human about him? “Kimball?”

“Yeah.”

She wanted to ask, Are you capable of loving someone? but thought against it. “Never mind,” she said, and cancelled the call.

“She was obviously lying as to what happened last night,” said Yahweh over the phone. “All this crap about law enforcement showing up at her house at the most opportune time. Bullshit. And she failed to mention this Kimball Hayden.”

“I can tell you he’s a man you don’t want to mess with. Three elite members were taken out last night by this guy alone… Enough said.”

“I know about last night. I want to know about him.”

Judas was surprised to receive a call from Yahweh. He had always worked through his conduit, George Pappandopolous. “His code name was the Professor,” he began, “because no matter how good anybody else was as an assassin, they were nothing but students compared to this guy. At that time he was the most lethal weapon the White House had to offer in its day — a solo black op whose skills were far superior to anyone else.”

“And?”

“In 1991, during the outbreak of the Gulf War, George Bush sent Hayden to dispatch Saddam Hussein hoping to cause turmoil within the ranks of the Republican Guard, so they would vacate Kuwait before the United States and its allies moved in. But the guy dropped off the grid. And it was believed that he was killed during the mission.”

“Yet he surfaces at the doorstep of an FBI agent years later. How very interesting. Was he alone?”

“I saw only one man, just a shadow — big, tall.”

“Then take him out.”

Judas could feel his scrotum crawl. Asking him to take out Kimball Hayden was like asking to wrestle a full grown bull to the ground with just your bare hands — a huge feat. “I don’t think you understand—”

“What I understand, Judas, is that you’re getting a large sum for your services. Special Agent Cohen is getting dangerously close to the truth, which is evident by the materials presented today at the Oval Office. If she gets any closer, the cause will falter and your money will be pissed away because you, me and half of Capitol Hill will be in Club Fed or worse.”

“I can’t do this alone. And I’m not sure the remaining members of Omega Team can do it either.”

“For chrissakes, Judas, Hayden isn’t a god. He’s one man.”

Judas shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other. Normally he was seldom rattled, but he met Kimball Hayden personally and unlike Yahweh, was not blind to the man’s deadly skills.

“You’re the field general in this cause. See that the job gets done. Take out Cohen. And if Hayden is there, take him out as well. Start earning your money!” The call concluded with the definite click of disconnection.

The pope hardly looked like the man whom kings and queens bowed before. His face was partially crusted with blood, and the one-time sparkle of life and hope in his eyes, all but gone.

Sometime within the last half hour, he didn’t know when, Kodiak had laid the body of Bishop Angelo beside him. The pulp and gore of his wound was a disturbing sight to the pontiff, enough to feel a twinge of fading hope.

Reaching for the bishop’s hand, which was still warm to the touch, the pope embraced it with both of his. “There was nothing I could do,” he told him. “Nothing at all.” He closed his eyes and prayed, his lips moving silently.

For the first time in his life Pope Pius wondered if God had abandoned them, then admonished himself for even considering such a notion. After all, He always had a design. But whatever it was, Pope Pius didn’t have a clue.

While Shari was at JEH working under the watchful eye of her staff, Kimball was at the archdiocese recharging his strength by catching a quick catnap, a two-hour respite to wash away the fatigue that been accumulating for several hours.

For the first time in a long time he didn’t dream of his own demons surfacing from the sands of Iraq, but envisioned the lovely and almost too perfect face of Shari Cohen as she smiled to him, her face surrounded by a nimbus of light. When she spoke he couldn’t hear her, although her lips moved gracefully. And her smile, above all else, intoxicating.

She would try to communicate with him, her hands held out in invitation for Kimball to come forward. But he found it impossible to approach, his feet riveted by the force of his own cowardice, as he stood there damning himself for not acting on her encouragement. And then she began to retreat into a light that was all-consuming, Kimball watching with regret as she moved on without him.

It was here that Kimball awoke with his mouth cotton dry. Staring at the ceiling, his tongue lapping his parched lips, Kimball found himself admitting that he was becoming deeply infatuated with her, a married woman, and another sin in the eyes of God.

But he believed she forgave him for what he was and what he did, of which he was grateful for. So he gravitated toward her, feeling a pull unlike any he had ever felt before. She embraced him with her mercy.

However, he felt a conscience pang unlike any other as well. He felt ashamed for his unrefined thoughts, especially when clerics walked the hallways of the dormitory where he rested.

Shari Cohen was becoming the centerpiece of his world.

Getting to his feet, he wondered why God continued to look favorably upon him, especially when he seemed to constantly test the limits of His rules. The answer was simple: play now and pay later on Judgment Day.

There was no doubt in Kimball’s mind that redemption was unsalvageable in the eyes of God, and that he was doomed to damnation in which his Deliverance would be a dark one. For the moment regret overwhelmed him, causing him to close his eyes and plead for mercy.

Beside him, the clock on the night stand seemed to tick louder than normal; a reminder that time was always working toward Judgment Day for us all. It was not a day Kimball was looking forward to.

Shari Cohen’s team worked diligently throughout the day trying to acquire whatever background information was available regarding the principles of YUKOS Oil and Venezuela’s PDVSA. As Shari expected, further information on Abraham Obadiah was non-existent.

Although the information was plentiful, there was nothing ascribed to the primary players in the photos that indicated they were involved in improprieties — another block wall. So Shari wondered if she was wrong in her conjecture that there was a tie between the encryptions, the dossiers, and the pope’s kidnapping.

With the sting of pain between her shoulders subsiding little, she took a seat and watched the conclusion of the president’s address. The man looked dramatically agitated; the gesticulations of his hands a visual technique noting that the kidnapping of the pope was a violation to religious freedom everywhere and that intolerance was the true sin. Other than that, he offered nothing more than false hope as hate crimes escalated. Riots against Islamic communities within Christian nations felt the wrath of their anger as mosques burned to the ground, and people dragged through the streets. With a heavy heart, Shari felt an uneasiness creep over her as the world began to unravel before her eyes.

Working tirelessly as the day waxed on, she examined every bit of data coming in from all sources, national and international. Al-Qaeda was recruiting through the Internet, the volume of responses overwhelming. Devotion to Jihad was suddenly at fever pitch. The word through the international chat rooms was that threats were being fostered against the United States and its allies by insurgents from Muslim and Islamic faiths. But there was nothing intercepted that shed any light as to the location of the pope. The Soldiers of Islam, if nothing else, were careful in their communication.

Outside, the sun had set, the street lights illuminating in shades of gold and amber. With sheaves of documents littering her desktop, Shari stared out the window as if there was something hypnotic about the landscape. But in reality she was thinking. Somewhere in the darkness of those D.C. streets, Leviticus and Nehemiah were watching over her with spying eyes. But was she also being watched by the Force Elite? She could only wonder.

After a moment of reflection, she cast a sidelong glance to a framed photograph of her family that was situated at the corner of her desk. With Gary smiling his boyish charm and the girls smiling with teeth either missing or sitting irregular along the gum line, she picked up the photo and gave it her full attention. She had fallen in love with Gary only after he had fought for her affection and suffered her countless refusals. Perhaps it was his determination, or perhaps his perseverance, that finally won her over. Either way, their love had grown together and created two beautiful daughters.

Then comes Kimball Hayden, larger than life, seemingly a poster child for the bad-boy image who had somehow worked his way into her emotions, but without the tenacity Gary had shown.

She traced her fingers over her husband’s image and quietly asked his forgiveness for feelings she could not control. Her answer, of course, came in the form of total silence.

Slowly, she placed the photo back on the desk unable to stop the image of Kimball Hayden’s face from entering her mind. For the second time that day she felt dirty.

The Coroner’s lab was an infusion of alcohols and chemicals, which was far better than the stench of the corpses lying in gathered pieces on stainless steel tables.

Clothing from the bodies were removed and bagged as evidence. Body parts were matched to torsos by sorting through the corresponding sizes and densities of the pieces. Rib cages lay open revealing the lack of internal organs, the lumbar column fully visible. Femurs and fibulas were separated, but matched to individual corpses. Nevertheless, there was enough left to cobble together IDs which garnered immediate strikes from Interpol, the Department of Homeland Security, and other top-worldwide agencies.

After piecing together their identities, the coroner’s office immediately prioritized their work to establish a ninety-nine-point-ninety-seven percent probability of the identities on the corpses and sent the results to Special Agent Cohen of the FBI, according to the red-flag status in their network, which was protocol.

The identities of the bullet riddled bodies found in the Mojave Desert were about to provide major pieces to Shari Cohen’s puzzle.