The Brimstone Diaries

by Rick Jones

  “Why now?” asked Father Essex. “After all these centuries?”

  “The answer to that is very simple, I’m afraid. It’s a sick world out there and it’s getting sicker all the time. There will always be madmen and fanatics. That will never change.” The Franciscan priest then climbed the steps and joined Father Essex’s side. “Do we know who the next in line is?” he asked him.

  Father Essex nodded. Moving to a console, he began to move apps around the console’s dashboard. In 1980, the Vatican added a section to the Sacred Archives to store digitalized works from information taken from old books and ancient parchments. Father Essex was uploading digitalized pages from the tome that had been stolen.

  The symbols and writing on the wall’s monitor appeared as hieroglyphics, the characters an archaic form from an ancient time. “The information will remain marginally encrypted,” he said, typing commands on a keyboard so that the mainframe could crunch the data, “even after it’s been decoded.”After the system determined the page’s cipher to the best of its ability from Aramaic to English, a line came up on the screen. Misha Gabon//Londinium//471908:0356

  “There you have it,” said Father Essex. “The next in line if we don’t act soon.”

  Misha Gabon was a code name, Londinium was the code’s location, and the series of numbers registered the moment of birth. Misha was a Chaldean Aramaic word for Marsha, and Gabon for Gibbons. Londinium was what the Romans called London during their rule in 43 A.D. And the string of numbers noted the year, day, month and the exact time of the target’s birth.

  “Marsha Gibbons in London,” said Father Essex. “Born August nineteenth,

  1947, at 3:56 A.M.”

  “You know this for certain?”

  “Her name follows Lamont Charbonneau. Since the assassin appears to be interpreting the book’s ciphers and killing by the arrangement of names on the list, this gives us reason to believe that Gibbons is next.”

  “They’re interpreting the ancient codes faster than anticipated,” said Father Auciello.

  Father Essex agreed. “There’s no doubt they’re using a program to break the ciphers.”

  Father Auciello turned to face Father Essex with eyes that were quite inquisitive.

  “What about the Guardians?” he asked him. “Can we get them onsite until we can send a team of Vatican Knights?”

  Father Essex said. “They’ve been activated. But we both know that the Guardians are no match for an elite assassin.”

  Father Auciello realized that the Guardians were a minimal fix to a dire situation. The Guardians were non-violent people who could barely raise a fist against an adversary. They would, however, serve as an obstacle to save another, with the possible cost of their actions a moral sacrifice of their lives. “We need to speak with the pontiff in close council,” he finally said. “And quickly.”

  “I agree. And Kimball.”

  “I’m sure the pontiff will want him there, as well.”

  “I’ll set it up,” said Father Essex. “Thirty minutes inside the Apostolic Palace.”

  When Father Essex left, Father Auciello wondered how close the assassin was to the next victim.

  He would soon get his answer.

  Chapter Nine

  ––––––––

  The Office of Monsignor Dom Giammacio

  Vatican City

  Kimball Hayden was a man who always wore a suit of armor that was pieced together by a single bolt, a tough exterior that was sometimes difficult to hold together. Inside the office of Monsignor Dom Giammacio, Kimball Hayden always found it difficult to keep that bolt secured.

  “Kimball, there’s little time left, and you’ve barely said a word,” the monsignor pointed to the wall clock. “In fact, we have less than ten minutes.”

  “No offense, Padre, but you know I don't care much for these sessions.”

  “We've been over this how many times before, Kimball? And we both know you're here at the courtesy of the pontiff.”

  “I am here at the courtesy of Bonasero Vessucci.”

  “You’re here because you still have doubts about where you are between the Darkness and the Light. You’re here because deep down inside, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, you want to be here. And deeper still, Kimball, you want to know the truth as to whether the deeds of your past as an assassin still outweighs the good that you have done as a Vatican Knight. You want me to validate that the Light is within your reach.” The monsignor brought a cigarette to his lips and regarded Kimball carefully through one eye, while closing the other against the curl of smoke before adding, “But I’m not going to do that, Kimball. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Not anymore. The only one who can validate that the Light is within his reach is the one who holds the doubt of being able to do so. I will no longer sit here and tell you that the Light has been within you all along. Nor will I sit here and tell you that the redemption you seek had been met long ago when you decided to aid the church. If you don’t believe it by now, Kimball, perhaps you never will.”

  Kimball leaned forward in his seat. “What’s the matter, Padre, wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

  The monsignor waved the hand with the cigarette at Kimball dismissively.

  “That’s not the point,” he told him. “You come in here every week and pull the same stunt. You say nothing until the last ten minutes, then suddenly you want to open up.”

  “You think I come here, Padre—”

  “And that’s another thing,” the monsignor interrupted. “Stop calling me padre. I’m a monsignor.”

  “You think I come here, Padre, because I like to hear your voice? You have no idea where I’m at.”

  “I know you’re angry. And I know as much of a tough veneer you like to put on, but deep down inside you’re fracturing. I see the breakages, Kimball. I see it when men who want to be good end up showing nothing but the capabilities of their extreme violence when frustrated. And in you, Kimball, I see a man who serves as the fulcrum between sinner and saint, a man-child who wants others to validate his goodness because he’s too blind to see it for himself. It’s this validation from others that keeps you going until you become too pent-up by quarrelsome emotions, which suddenly turns you into a creature of darkness.”

  Kimball was stunned by the priest’s abruptness. “You sit there in judgment all you want, Padre, but I do what I do because you have absolutely know understanding as to what—”

  “What? What you’re going through? Is that what you’re going to tell me?” He took another drag from his cigarette, his hand visibly shaking. He knew he was pushing Kimball to his limits. “Well, let me tell you something, Kimball. It seems that the only battle you can wage and never win is the one against yourself.” Kimball eased back into his seat, his eyes locking firmly with the monsignor’s. “Yes, I know,” the monsignor continued. “You’ve killed men, women and even children as an assassin for the United States government. You’ve killed with impunity and at will because it was free to do so. This is another road we’ve been down so many times before, about your job missions and the killing of innocents. We’ve also been down the road about how you’ve managed to serve the church well in missions that saved countless lives—people who couldn’t protect themselves. But in the end, Kimball, I will dance with you no longer. It’s time for you to uncage that dark animal you hold deep inside you, alone.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone.”

  Kimball nodded in an ‘I see’ manner. Then: “When I came on as a Vatican Knight I knew I wouldn’t come aboard just to put out fires. I never saw the point in putting a Band-Aid over the wound instead of cutting away the cancer. Yes, I killed in the name of the church because I couldn’t allow a man who deals with sex trafficking of minors to continue his trade two weeks after we saved one group of children, only for him to gather another group and start the trade all over again. And yes, I returned to the Middle East to take down leading members of ISIS knowing
that beating them in battle is not beating them at war. I killed them knowing they would build new armies with new recruits. And I did this knowing that the church would disagree with my actions because taking a life outside of the act of saving myself, or a team member, or someone who is incapable of saving themselves, could never be condoned in the eyes of the Vatican. But here I am. So, my question to you is why?”

  The monsignor continued to look at Kimball through his one eye.

  “You know what, Padre, that caged animal you talk about serves me just fine. I think I’ll keep it right where it is.”

  There was a light wrapping on the monsignor’s door.

  “Come in.”

  When the door opened, a bishop from the Holy See poked his head inside.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Monsignor, but Mr. Hayden’s presence is required at the Apostolic Palace regarding a matter of great urgency.”

  “Of course,” said the monsignor. “We were wrapping up anyway.”

  When the bishop closed the door, the monsignor stamped out his cigarette in a tray filled with butts. “Same time next week, then?” he asked expectantly.

  “As always.”

  The moment Kimball left the office and closed the door behind him, the monsignor reflected. Kimball was a good man with a good heart, but he was also a man capable of great violence. To exorcise the dark animal within him might be—as Kimball alluded to—taking away his strength.

  Lighting up another cigarette, the monsignor wondered how effective Kimball would be if he followed the rules mandated by the church. Or how different the world would be if he didn’t give in to the darkness and angers that often guided him.

  It would be worse, he told himself. Much worse.

  In a dreamy sort of way, the monsignor smiled. Sometimes, he thought, selected men who carry a certain darkness are needed to pave the way to the Light.

  Perhaps people like Kimball Hayden needed to continue feeling inadequate about his ongoing search for the Light, because he needs to serve through Darkness.

  The monsignor continued to smoke and think and wonder.

  Chapter Ten

  ––––––––

  London, England

  In Vatican City where a group was gathering inside the Apostolic Palace, a woman was getting onto a train in the Piccadilly Circus’ tube line. It was early afternoon and the congestion was heavy. Finding a seat, the woman reached into her bag, pulled out a thick novel, and opened it at the dog-eared page. Many stood hanging on to the rail, and for the most part nondescript-looking people. But at the far end of the train stood a priest who appeared anything but ordinary. He was a tall man who was thickly built with large arms, a massive chest and tree-trunk thighs. He also wore the Roman Catholic band around the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. But his most outstanding feature was the tattoo markings along both arms, his flesh the canvas detailing the fine art of Jesus wearing the Crown of Thorns, a weeping Mother Mary who had her hands affixed in constant prayer, and several Christian crosses. The woman, however, was too engrossed in the novel to take notice. Others, however, did. Two bobbies inside the train kept their watchful eyes on the priest, neither afraid to pin the cleric with deep and glowering stares. And a woman with dyed hair as black as raven feathers kept the priest under observation as well, though she appeared to study him with neutrality and less with judgment. The priest was aware of these people too—could sense them drawing a peculiar bead on him with interest outside of his tattoos.

  Guardians!

  As the train rode the tube to Waterloo, the woman, in her seventies, packed her book and got off the train, while remaining completely oblivious of the world around her.

  When the priest exited at the train’s opposite end, he began to push his way through the crowd with the thick bands of his muscles flexing, the strength behind them enormous. The images of Jesus and Mary becoming animated by the movement of his muscles along his forearms, the illustrations seemingly to take on lives of their own. Even within this sea of bobbing heads the woman remained in his sight, the priest pushing his way forward to close the gap between them. As the woman climbed the stairs to reach the street, the priest made it to the bottom of the stairway when a hand alit upon his shoulder. The grip was strong enough to hold him back.

  “Now-now, bloke, what’s the rush ‘ere?” It was one of the two bobbies. Both had their sticks out.

  The priest gave a sidelong glance to the woman climbing the steps. The woman with the dyed-hair was right behind her, a shield who divided him from his target. Then back to the bobby, he said, “I’m afraid I’m pressed for time.” “Ah, an American,” said the second bobby, who raised his club and pointed its tip at the priest’s collar. “And what order are you from?” The priest looked up the stairwell. Both the woman and the dyed-haired lady were gone.

  Then back to the bobby, he asked, “I’m sorry. Have I done something wrong?”

  “Just curious, is all,” said the bobby who continued to point his club. “You appeared to have a certain interest in that woman, yes? Something rather unhealthy, perhaps? At least to her?”

  “I’m afraid I must go,” said the priest, turning.

  But the first bobby grabbed the priest’s shoulder once again to anchor him.

  This time, however, the priest reacted swiftly and violently.

  The cleric pivoted on his feet and lashed out with the blade of his hand, a perfect strike to the bobby’s throat. There was a crack upon impact, the bobby’s eyes flaring to the size of communion wafers as he went to his knees, the man gagging.

  As the second bobby raised his club, the priest grabbed the officer’s wrist and gave it a violent torque. The action destroyed the bones so abruptly, the bobby’s hand now hung at a nauseating angle. As the club fell from the constable’s grip and to the floor, the priest caught it in midflight and directed it on the officers. He struck the first bobby along the side of his neck, a strong and arcing blow that immediately broke bones. As the constable fell to the platform, the second bobby, from his knees, could only watch as the club came down in a blur. It only took a single blow to forever immobilize the officer.

  Tossing the club aside to the confusion and horror of those who witnessed the interaction between the bobbies and the priest, the man with the tattoos raced up the stairs to the street. As he reached the avenue, he saw the women take a corner, but not before he and the dyed-haired lady had locked eyes, even if it was only a moment. She was still following the target, he considered, to protect the woman.

  The priest gave chase.

  * * *

  The lady with the dyed hair was in her late twenties, loved heavy-metal music, loved to dress like a Goth, and loved God above everything else. When she received a call to intervene on behalf of the church, she didn’t even question the reason why. She knew that she needed to perform in a way that was necessary to save the life of the woman she was following. As she was leaving the station, she saw the bobbies stopping the priest for questioning, a predetermined ploy that was to allow her and the target time to draw distance. But when she looked over her shoulder a moment before she rounded the corner of the street, she saw the priest closing in.

  The bobbies had failed.

  Now it was up to her.

  Reaching inside her spangled purse, the dyed-haired lady pulled out a knife, thumbed the switch, and watched the blade pop out of the handle with a snicker.

  The priest was closing fast. She could almost hear his footfalls.

  She gripped the handle of the knife and prayed to God, asking Him to give her strength.

  When she could sense the priest upon her, when she could see his colossal shadow partnering with hers along the sidewalk, she turned. With the knife at the ready, the priest grabbed her wrist, wrenched it cleanly to one side, snapped the bones within, grabbed the weapon, and slashed her throat. The entire sequence of events took less than two seconds, the priest’s motions were that quick and precise. As the woman fell to her knees with h
er good hand over the gash of her wound, the priest depressed the switch, which caused the blade to slide back into the handle, pocketed the weapon, and left her to die.

  His target, who was completely unaware as to the happenings that surrounded her, entered her flat that was approximately fifty meters from his position.

  The priest closed in.

  Chapter Eleven

  ––––––––

  Rome, Italy

  As his station required, Cardinal Alnasseri made his appearances at the Vatican. But not without a sense of mild paranoia, thinking that Cardinal Restucci may have proposed his suspicions to others. Just because no one appeared to act differently to Alnasseri’s approaches, this didn’t mean that a few within the College didn’t have their inquiries about his character as well.

  After the body of Cardinal Restucci had been removed from his Rome apartment by an Islamic sanitation crew several days prior, Abdallah Kattan, as Cardinal Alnasseri, continued to have concerns that Restucci was the first crack in the dam, with his story as the cardinal from Syria beginning to show fractures. Calling Fariq on an encrypted line, the Arab picked up after several rings.

  “Abdallah Kattan,” was all Fariq said in greeting.

  “You’ve made contact with Houshmand, yes?”

  “As you specified.”

  “And?”

  “The deal was acceptable. One million in U.S. currency was offered to him as a good-faith payment. Within ten days he will receive an additional fourteen million more for the item.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  Fariq sounded as if he was sucking air through his teeth. “Oh yes, Abdallah. It was truly spectacular. There’s no doubt that Allah favors us.”

  Kattan smiled on his head. “That’s good news, Fariq. And the additional funds?”

  “We have the money. It’ll be in the account before the time’s up.”