by Rick Jones
CNN. Fox News. HLN. CBS News. She tried them all knowing that Mohammad Allawi’s escape from a Blacksite facility would never make the news, since Blacksite facilities were strictly covert. Anything regarding such sites were always handled internally. They would send special units to hunt Allawi down. But Mohammad Allawi was a man of shrewd cunning who could easily evade the dragnets. With intentions to exhibit his raw power now that he was free to do so, she could only wonder. After bouncing from network to network and discovering nothing suitable, she shut off the TV. The apartment was quiet except for the wall clock, which ticked off the seconds. Life still had meaning for her, even with the loss of her family. Though she was dismissed from having anything to do with the Allawi case, she believed, given the man’s profile, that he would strike against American interests. But in the meantime, he would evade the authorities and computer experts, as well as to stay out of the range of CCTV cameras, so that the facial recognition programs would be rendered ineffective. Shari then considered to dine out and perhaps have a glass of Chardonnay with her meal, maybe a Riesling. Then an odd flash entered her mind of an encounter with Kimball Hayden, who was sitting opposite her at the table. He was smiling to show perfect rows of teeth, while his cerulean-blue eyes glimmered like sapphires. He was wearing a business suit instead of his cleric’s uniform and Roman Catholic collar, a departure from the norm. And then he was gone, the seat across from her now empty. And yet again within her mind’s eye . . . she was left alone.
Forgoing the expensive meal, she decided to stay home, instead.
But in the back of her mind she continued to wonder about Kimball Hayden, who had always been her Rock of Gibraltar . . . and a friend she sorely missed. After heating up a TV dinner in the microwave, she ate on the balcony.
Chapter Eight
The Papal Chamber, Apostolic Palace
Vatican City
Pope John Paul III was sitting behind the papal desk wearing a white cassock and zucchetto. Monsignor Giammacio, who sat opposite the pontiff, was wearing a conventional cassock, sash and zucchetto skullcap. They were engaged in a discussion about Kimball Hayden and his sudden freefall.
“I’m deeply concerned,” said the monsignor. “Kimball seems to find comfort in drink instead of prayer.”
“Kimball never did find comfort in prayer. But you say his drinking has worsened?”
“In my opinion, Your Holiness, it’s much worse.”
“Has he related to you the reason why his condition is deteriorating?”
The monsignor nodded. “He appears to be suffering a moral crisis after his occurrence in the Philippines,” he told him. “As you know, Kimball was forced to take the life of a child, a boy. His fall seems to be originating from that occurrence
. . . and the act that may have pushed him over the edge. He’s now speeding his way to rock bottom.”
“From the reports,” the pontiff stated, “he had no other choice. The man was defending himself.”
“I told him that.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘the easiest thing for man to do is to justify any action, no matter how terrible that action may be. But he could not.’ Perhaps he believes that he could have done something differently to defuse the situation, so that the child did not have to die at all. My belief, Your Holiness, is that he’s second guessing his actions and now looks upon the mission with hindsight. I often have people who come to me with sensations of guilt after making the wrong decision. So perhaps Kimball’s freefall arises from overwhelming guilt which, he says, comes from a ‘lifetime of killing.’ I think he’s been assessing his life in the wrong way.” The pontiff clasped his hands together and stared ceilingwards. Kimball Hayden was the foundation of the Vatican Knights, the heart and soul of the unit who served in the name of God. But he was also a man who marched to the beat of his own drum and bloodied his hands all the way up to his elbows to make the world sane again. After a while, the pontiff considered, a lifetime of killing often took its toll on the human condition that was soulful. Kimball Hayden had obviously reached that moment.
“Is he too far gone for an extensive sabbatical?” he asked the monsignor.
“Honestly, Your Holiness, he may be too far gone for me to reach . . . Or too lost for any amount of time he may need to heal. And I’m afraid that if he goes on a sabbatical, he may simply drink his life away.” Then reaching into his pocket, the monsignor produced the cleric’s band Kimball gave him and placed it on the pontiff’s desk. “He surrendered this to me,” he told the pope.
The pontiff stared at the band. “I know it had always been his personal treasure,” he said. “It was his reminder of why he was a Vatican Knight. And it served its purpose by prompting him to seek redemption, so in the end he would be gifted with the Light of Loving Spirits.”
“He whole-heartedly believes that nothing awaits him but the Eternal Lakes of Fire.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“In so many words.”
“To surrender what he cherished most is never a good sign. Never. At least not from Kimball Hayden.” Then the pontiff softly shook his head sadly. “A stalwart he is as a Vatican Knight, Monsignor. But we cannot have a man—no matter how gifted he may be—surrender his soul rather than raise it.”
“What do you want me to do, Your Holiness?”
“Give the man time,” he answered. “Perhaps God will demonstrate to Kimball a need for him to serve once again.”
“And if He doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll have no choice but to elevate Isaiah to take full command of the unit.”
“Permanently?”
The pontiff nodded. “Permanently.”
After kissing the Fisherman’s Ring on the pontiff’s finger, which was the signet ring worn by the pope, Monsignor Giammacio left the papal chamber and returned to his quarters.
Pope John III removed himself from the papal chair and labored to the balcony doors that overlooked St. Peter’s Square.
Even the strong and the mighty can fall, he thought while watching the people mill about the plaza.
And as he stood there he prayed. He asked God to save the soul of a noble man who had been blinded by the savagery of his past sins. And then he went on to express how Kimball was a good and decent man who was truly repentant after receiving his epiphany. Though he may not have walked the straight-and-narrow line that divided the ‘Dark’ from the ‘Light,’ his service to the church and in His name remained incredibly valuable.
“Please allow Kimball the peace his soul clearly deserves, My Lord. And please allow him to see the ‘Light’ so that he can embrace it within his heart. I ask not for me but for him. He agonizes deeply and should these wounds grow deeper, I’m afraid he’ll never find the true treasure of the salvation he seeks in life.” The words had been spoken so softly, it was as if he was mouthing them.
Returning to his chair behind the desk, Pope John Paul III also returned to his papal duties of creating and editing doctrines. Still, and as much as he tried to delve into his works, his mind was incapable of wandering too far from Kimball Hayden.
Then he wondered: how much deeper can a man fall into the Abyss before he can be resurrected?
The answer eluded him as he continued to write.
Chapter Nine
Winchester, Virginia
Days later as promised Mohammad Allawi was back to full health. He was about to stage his comeback in a major way, with his revival a glorious performance to Allah. He had chosen sites across the landscape that had relevant meaning of ‘freedom’ to the people of the United States. Lives would give themselves over freely in the name of Allah as moral sacrifices. Icons would fall. And the crusaders of the new order would usher in chaos that would bring the Great Satan to its knees. Muslims all over the world would rejoice and embrace Mohammad Allawi as a near-prophet, and as the man who brought down Goliath with the sling of a symbolic stone.
In the basement of this nondescript home in Virgi
nia, which was surrounded by unkempt trees and brush on more than a dozen acres of land that was far from prying eyes, Allawi and Najm, along with six others, were finalizing the last details of the operation.
Those who stood before Mohammad Allawi had gladly accepted the roles of martyrdom. They would surrender their lives in the name of Allah, already professing that their afterlife would be blissfully eternal.
Your rewards will be waiting for you, my brothers! Allawi would tell them. Then he would enrich them further by adding: By this time tomorrow, you’ll all be dining in Paradise together!
Cheers went up in an odd exuberance of celebrating their deaths.
Each man was fitted with a vest that was laden with Semtex blocks the size of gold bricks, with each man carrying a six-brick load. The power behind one vest was strong enough to level a storefront; two bricks could easily raze a three-story building; and anything en masse would be catastrophic, which is why Allawi considered two three-man units to promote the cause. He had chosen two sites to launch his beginning statement. And with the six-man unit divided equally between the sites with each man wearing a six-brick vest for a total of eighteen bricks per site, the unified explosion at the two locations would not only be destructive, but absolutely devastating.
That night meals were cooked by Najm, who, as a quasi-chef, discovered a talent in food preparation. There were delectable meats, vegetables, non-alcoholic beverages, everything that a condemned man would want as a final meal.
Then at the table, Mohammad Allawi, after striking his fork against his glass to garner everyone’s attention, said with less revelry, “Tonight we dine together as brothers for a cause,” he said. “And tomorrow, every man who sits at this table preparing to give himself over to Allah is a man blessed. Not only do you exhibit courage, but conviction as well. Will not courage and conviction see us through? It will . . . And it shall. For every man who sits in my presence, let it be known that you have nothing to fear. The moment you deliver yourself into Allah’s embrace, is also the moment that the world will rejoice because of your bravery.”
The would-be martyrs looked upon Allawi as if he was a demi-god, with the vanity of pride a telling emotion that sparked from their eyes. The leader was exalting them, saying that they had earned the right of eternal bliss after a moment of pain.
Then as Allawi went silent, so did everyone else at the table as they finished their meals.
Chapter Ten
Rome, Italy
There had been times in Kimball Hayden’s life when he had questioned his state of mind. But as he sat in a bar with a line of shot glasses sitting before him, something that had been a ritual to him but was now becoming habitual, Kimball could sense a loss of control. At the moment he was flipping through the memories of his past and brought up horrid images that were too numerous to count. He recalled the moments as a government assassin when he summarily executed people for the ‘good’ of the nation, those whistle-blowers who wanted to bring light to the ‘ills’ of the government. Protect the Establishment, the powers that be would tell him. Preserve democracy. And he would follow their rule as if it was gospel and killed with impunity.
Kimball drank the first shot glass in a single swallow, tipped it over, and placed it rim down on the table. There were so many more shots to go, he considered, more than a dozen. Long ago, in a small town outside of Washington, D.C., Kimball confronted a mother who was dining with her fourteen-year-old daughter inside a small cafe just before she was scheduled to testify before a committee regarding the abuses of a senator. To make his point, Kimball tossed a pair of photos of her other children in front of her, a son and second daughter, who were in college. The pictures had been taken at close range, telling the woman that they could be reached anytime to suffer the same consequences that her fourteen-year-old was about to suffer. That’s when Kimball extended his point by shooting and killing the young girl in front of her. Should the woman testify before the council, then the same fate would apply to her other children, as well. And then he was gone from the scene, the man nothing but a phantom who dispersed like mist in the wind.
The woman never testified.
Kimball could feel his soul fracturing from these remembrances, could feel the overwhelming guilt crush him enough to squeeze tears to the surfaces of his eyes, which took on the red and rheumy look of a man about to break.
My God, what have I done?!
More memories.
As a member who walked through the hallways of the White House, he could hear the discussions from the principals of which Kimball was the topic. He kills with the cold fortitude of a machine, he heard on many occasions, something he was proud of. But the most damning to him was: He operates like a man without a soul. And this line would be the beginning of his epiphany. Kimball reached for two shot glasses and downed them both.
As his guilt mounted and became almost too much to control, Kimball thought:
I kill people! . . . It’s what I do! . . . It’s the only thing I’m good at!
He drank another glass, a quick swig.
And then another image surfaced, something that had settled into his memory long ago.
He and his kill-squad had been ordered by reigning senators to snuff out the life of Senator Cartwright, a man who often used the skeletons-within-the-closet of others as tools to control the political careers of incumbents, should they decide against him. Since Cartwright was considered a danger to democracy because he solely wanted to control the Senate constituency, Kimball served as the assassin who drove the blade across his throat in the name of democracy. Kimball started to squirm in his seat, the area suddenly too small for him to display his agitation. Then he downed another shot, the alcohol doing little to bring him peace of mind. And then there was the memory which struck the moment of his epiphany. He was on a mission to assassinate Saddam Hussein days after the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. His core assignment was to take out Hussein before the decision to enter battle was made by George Herbert Walker Bush. The idea was to sever the head of the snake so that the body would wither, hopefully to end the war before it had a chance to gain traction. But the entire operation was an impossibility and, at best, a suicide mission. Kimball would later learn that he had been labeled as a liability because he killed a senator at the call of other senators—in what could be considered shades of Brutus Albinus and Julius Caesar—who wanted him erased, should Kimball decide to confess his act to the Oversight Committee. As he committed to this mission as the sole operator, Kimball had no idea that he had been made expendable at the hands of American politicians, who deemed him too toxic for their schemes. But Kimball was committed to his cause and to his country, and to those whom he thought were his peers who looked upon him with respect rather than a device. He was young, naive and built to please those whom he believed gave him direction. He had the ears of certain senators and cherished this circle he was a part of, always feeling a sense of great importance which bolstered his vanity. Never once did it occur to him that he was nothing more than an errand boy to them. While moving across the desert landscape, Kimball had come up on two shepherd boys. One may have been around twelve, the other younger. And since they had compromised his position, he had no choice but to put them both down. That night, as he buried them beneath the sand, Kimball Hayden found a rediscovery of himself. He had seen himself as a monster, this man who kills children, and he mourned their deaths. And as he laid there and watched the pinpoint glitters of the night sky, this was the first time he wondered if there truly was a God. Come morning as the white-hot sun rose, Kimball Hayden absconded from duty and disappeared from the ranks of the Pentagon. A few days later, while in a bar in Venice, it was here that a cardinal by the name of Bonasero Vessucci offered him redemption.
We’ve been watching you; the cardinal had told them. Then after a long discussion between priest and assassin, a new alliance had been born. Especially when Bonasero Vessucci stated: Any man’s soul can be redeemed, if that man is truly repent
ant of past sins.
Kimball downed another shot glass: Not true!
Then from afar if not from the grave he could hear Bonasero’s voice, though he had passed three years ago. It was distant, perhaps the man speaking from the ‘Light,’ a place too far from the Vatican Knight.
I have always loved you like a son, Kimball. And when the ‘Light’ did not shine on those who could not protect themselves, you became their ‘Light.’ When things were at their worst, that was when you became your best.
I murdered a boy!
You protected yourself, Kimball, to maintain the balance between good and evil. If the child had killed you, then he would have stolen away opportunities for you to continue as a Vatican Knight and save the lives of good people. In the future, perhaps you will save the life of the person who becomes the next Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln, people of true virtue.
There’s no way of knowing.
True. But it’s not for us to know divine direction. We serve God in a capacity to make all men as virtuous as all the Gandhi’s and Lincolns of the world. But until that time comes, Kimball, we need people like you to keep your sword ready for anything that may violate the entitlements of the good. On some level, you’re an agent for the ‘Light,’ whether you see this or not.
I can’t take the pain anymore.
Assuming pain is a measure of a man whose conscience has finally been enlightened by the fact that the sins of his past were immoral. But before you are consumed entirely of regrets, know that the mistakes you made in life are not so important as the lessons you draw from them. Now is the time to open your heart and let in the ‘Light.’ Only then will you find the catharsis you seek. Here lies your moment of accepting redemption.
Kimball stared at the shot glasses before him. His nerves were frayed with each fiber of his being screaming out for the want of more whisky, something that would numb him into a coma for days.