The Brimstone Diaries

by Rick Jones

“Oh, yeah,” said Father Ferrano. “They’re more than capable.”

  Robert Bowman, however, maintained his concerns.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ––––––––

  Leonardo da Vinci Airport

  Rome, Italy

  In North Korea, Hyo Kim was known as the Mechanic. He was a leading scientist in Kim Jong-Un’s arsenal of nuclear scientists and techs who, under the authority of Jong-Un, could fully manage the operations to develop a successful hydrogen bomb program, until he defected. Having assumed a new identity with matching credentials and undergoing several operations to reconfigure the features of his face, Hyo Kim was now Hoon Kang, a mercenary who sold his skills to those with a high-cash offer. In this case, it was ISIS, who offered one million in American currency for one week’s work, providing they had all the materials at hand.

  Getting off the plane and exiting the terminal, he was greeted by a man named Fariq. He was thinly weak in appearance and seemed hardly the type of man who would possess the ear of a high-ranking official as Abdallah Kattan. Fariq, standing outside the terminal, held a sign that read: KANG.

  When Kang saw the man and a black SUV idling by the curb, he simply motioned to Fariq to get in the driver’s seat, while he took a seat in the back.

  As the vehicle pulled away from the curb, Fariq said, “Welcome, Master Kang, to Rome. I do pray that your trip was a joyous one.”

  “Kattan,” was his answer to Fariq. “Why is he not here?”

  “As you know, Master Kang, Abdallah Kattan is very busy.”

  “Too busy to meet with me?”

  “Abdallah Kattan does extend his apologies,” Fariq told him, though this was a lie. To people like Abdallah Kattan, anyone not in league with Allah was beneath him. Then from Fariq: “I am to serve as your host and conduit to Abdallah Kattan.

  As you already know, the operation is one of a delicate nature, so Kattan must be absolutely careful in this undertaking from beginning to end.”

  “Still,” said the North Korean, the scientist sounding annoyed.

  To Fariq, he sensed that this North Korean had elevated himself to a stature worthy of a red-carpet treatment and a man of a haughty nature. Nevertheless— and as much as Fariq despised the man the moment he ordered Fariq to take the driver’s seat with a dismissive wave—he knew that the man’s value to the operation was paramount, so he treated Kang with feigned respect.

  “The money sent to your account was satisfactory, yes?” Fariq asked him.

  Kang, however, ignored the Arab as they passed the House of Augustus upon entering the Palatine Hill in Rome. A few minutes later, the North Korean asked,

  “My room, I’m assuming it is of the highest quality?”

  “It is, Master Kang.”

  “And the factory for which I am to work at?”

  “On the outskirts of Rome. Inside a warehouse. No one will bother you there.”

  “What about the pieces involved for the assemblage of the product? I sent a request to Kattan upon the receipt of his good-faith funding to my account.”

  Fariq nodded. “The operation is in motion as we speak. We’ve received some of the parts, but not all.”

  “I expected everything to be ready upon arrival. Now I’m hearing that this is not the case?”

  “I apologize, Master Kang, but some of these parts must be obtained through the black market, if not all. And that takes time.”

  “If I must spend additional time in Rome to complete the project, that will cost Kattan more money since my time is quite valuable to me ...It is never free. The cost will be an additional one hundred thousand dollars per day, in American funds. Make sure that Kattan understands this.”

  “I most certainly will, Master Kang.”

  Fariq, maintaining calm, continued the drive Master Kang to his hotel.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ––––––––

  The Apostolic Palace

  Vatican City

  Many days after Cardinal Restucci’s disappearance, the pontiff received word of his departure after several cardinals had reported him missing. “Perhaps he returned to the diocese in Spain,” stated the pontiff, who sat behind his desk inside the papal chamber. Sitting opposite him was the Cardinal Secretary of State, or the prime minister of the Holy See, the good Cardinal Benedetto Caruso.

  The cardinal nodded. “He has not returned to Spain. This much we know for certain. And Cardinal Restucci is a man of responsibility. He would not disappear without telling anyone.”

  The pontiff seemed to consider this for a long moment, and then, “You worry for his welfare?”

  “I do. He informed others within the College that he had much to do before he returned to Spain, such as the doctrine he had been working on which remains incomplete.”

  “And you called the diocese in Spain, of course.”

  The cardinal nodded. “I fear something terrible has happened to him.”

  “His apartment?”

  “All his attire remains.”

  After a pause the pontiff said, “Contact the polizia and file a report. I agree that Cardinal Restucci is a man who does not go missing without cause.”

  “I’ll contact the bishops within the Holy See to start the process immediately.”

  When Cardinal Benedetto Caruso got to his feet, the pope extended his arm and allowed the cardinal to kiss the Fisherman’s Ring before he left the room.

  When Pope John Paul III was alone, he thought the situation would eventually remedy its way out, and that the good cardinal would show himself. But the fact was that he nor anyone within the College would ever see Cardinal Restucci again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ––––––––

  Rome, Italy

  “You have sinned a mighty sin!” The preacher was beside himself with rage, his face crimson as the cords of his veins stuck out along his neck and against his forehead. “You have sinned mightily within the eyes of the Lord!”

  Two boys, both ten years old, wept as they kneeled before a neon cross that buzzed with electricity as it flowed through the glass tubing of red light.

  The preacher was looking heavenward with the Bible held high in his hand. “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do!”

  The boys continued to whimper, knowing the fate that was about to befall them.

  “Forgive them, Lord, for lessons must be taught! Punishments must be handed out to drive out the wicked!”

  The boys, in unison, bowed their heads and prayed.

  “Punishments, Lord! Punishments!”

  The preacher lowered the book and undid his belt. Removing the leather strap from his waistline, he folded it so that the belt was looped. “Punishment, boys, for the sins of your eyes looking at dirty magazines, and at the harlots and whores who were unclothed and indecent. For looking upon these harlots with lust in your eyes that should be reading verses in the Bible, instead!”

  The preacher stood behind the first boy with the belt in hand. “I will drive away the wickedness in your souls! I will cleanse you of your taint and bring back purity.” The preacher raised his Bible high in one hand, and with the other he brought the strap down against the boy’s back, raising an angry red welt. When the boy barked out in pain, the preacher gave him a second slap and then a third, until the boy cried out no more. Then he moved on to the second child, held the belt high, and brought it down again and again and again, until the boy lost sight of the red neon cross hanging on the wall before him, and lost consciousness.

  “Cast off you demons of Darkness!” the preacher cried out. “And allow these boys to once again drink in the Light!”

  The man sat in the shadows of his apartment remembering every moment as if it had happened yesterday, even though twenty years had passed. It was a time where his brother was his only comfort and when the belt ruled over a household.It was a time when the demons of temptation had been whipped from their souls repeatedly and replaced with the Ligh
t of Virtuousness. And it was a time when a priest who had grown mad over time had also become their teacher in life. In London and Rome, the headline news was about how Robert Bowman had escaped an assassin’s attempt with the assassin now dead, and the constable, who was believed to have neutralized the killer, had yet to be named or identified. The man rose from the chair, went to the TV, then rammed a fist against the screen, smashing a point into the glass where it appeared like a spider’s web, before pushing it off the stand. Then he raged through the apartment destroying everything in his path. Tables were crushed beneath his hammer blows, the legs buckling. Holes were punched into the walls. Mirrors, paintings and wall adornments were either smashed or torn down. And the faucet in the kitchen sink was ripped right out of the basin, tubes and all, which caused an eruption of water to spray ceilingward. As his anger peaked, he took the Brimstone Diaries and tossed it against the wall, and hard, the weight of the book punching an indent in the drywall where it struck. Then he took the wand that explored the pages of the tome to decipher its codes and smashed it repeatedly against a table until it broke. Holding the half-wand before his eyes, it was only then that he realized what he had done.

  His ability to decode the book had been stolen away by his rage.

  After dropping the broken wand and calming down, he made his way to the prayer room where the cross hung against the wall. Flipping the wall switch, the cross blinked, hummed and came to life on the wall, filling the room with a red light. After he removed his shirt to reveal the wings of angels on his back and a plethora of other tattoos, which included the Virgin Mother and Jesus, who adorned the Crown of Thorns, the man reached under the bed, grabbed a box, and removed a whip.

  Holding the whip tight in his grasp, he spoke to the cross. “I have sinned by giving into rage and anger. I have sinned when I should have reasoned. In anger is Darkness, which I need to cast out.”

  As he gazed upon the neon cross, the man began to flog himself until the tattooed wings on his back began to bleed.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ––––––––

  Vatican Intelligence

  The Vatican

  In London, like most large cities, the eyes of Big Brother came by way of CCTV cameras that were located on every street corner and on almost every post. Once the assassin in a constable’s uniform had been pinpointed, it wasn’t difficult to retrace his path by reversing the tapes from the cameras’ storage files. Vatican Intelligence was able to discover the faux constable in front of Conway Hall, and from there began to reverse the CCTV footage to retrace his movements. Though the footage was grainy and poor in most cases, the build and makeup of the assassin was unmistakable.

  Fathers Essex and Auciello were able to mark the man’s journey in reverse from Conway Hall to the starting point of his flat. From many cameras that coordinated with one another to capture the assassin from different angles, the facial recognition software programming could not identify the man at all. When they had finally retraced the man’s steps to point A, which was the starting point where the assassin exited from his residence, Father Auciello said, “Type in the coordinates and tap into the orbital satellite.” After a few taps on the keyboard from a tech, an overhead image of the area appeared on the display screen. It was the entire city of London with a red dot marking the point of interest.

  “Now zoom in,” Auciello stated evenly.

  The image on the screen increased in size to the given coordinates until rooftops could be clearly seen.

  “Zoom in,” the priest ordered once again.

  This time the eye-in-the-sky satellite was able to home in to the precise flat.

  “Mark the coordinates and give me an address.”

  The tech typed a series of commands into the system where it crunched the data and gave the assassin’s address, which showed up on the screen.

  “Excellent,” said Father Auciello as he patted the tech on the shoulder for a job well done. “You know what to do.”

  After incorporating this information into the databank, the tech then forwarded the information of the assassin’s point of origin to Kimball Hayden and Father Ferrano, whose work in London was only beginning.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ––––––––

  London, England

  Outside of Kimball Hayden and Father Ferrano who were on their way to the coroner’s office, Robert Bowman remained at the archdiocese under the protection of the Vatican Knights. The traffic, however, was heavier than normal as they crossed the Tower Bridge.

  “How long have you been a field operative for Vatican Intelligence?” Kimball asked the Jesuit.

  “Not long,” he answered. “Only two years. Before that I was an Army Ranger who served in the Middle East as a sniper.”

  “A sniper?”

  Father Ferrano nodded. “Fifty-two recorded kills to my name. A record I’m not proud of when most in the ranks would be.”

  Kimball let a quiet moment pass before he asked, “And now you seek salvation through the church, is that it?”

  Father Ferrano sighed through his nostrils. “Perhaps,” was all he said. And then: “What’s your story?”

  “I worked for the United States government. Didn’t find it all that appealing.

  And then I left.”

  “Just like that?”

  “You work in Vatican Intelligence. You trying to tell me that you know nothing about my past?”

  Father Ferrano gave off a light smile. “Of course, I know,” he said. “Everyone knows about Kimball Hayden.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “I wanted to see how comfortable you were talking about what we used to be ..to what we have both become. Me, I had a keen eye for the long-distance kill.

  When my first target came up in the crosshairs of my scope, I wanted to pull the trigger because I wanted to know what it was like to have the power to steal away someone’s life. When I pulled the trigger, when I made my first kill, I was celebrated by the people around me for a job well done. But agony and guilt quickly set in. In time I had sleepless nights because the image of the bullet smashing his life from his body kept playing inside my mind repeatedly like a living nightmare that wouldn’t go away. Then when it came to my second kill I wondered if the pain Iwas sensing would double. So, the second kill, Kimball, at least for me, was the most difficult. It wasn’t the first kill. It was the second.”

  “And?”

  “When the time came to take down the second target, I pulled the trigger. And I found myself quite surprised that the guilt didn’t intensify at all but ebbed. In time the kills became easier as I became desensitized to what I was doing, my mind able to justify the act of killing.”

  “If you became all right with what you did, then why are you here? With the church?”

  “I said my mind was able to justify the act, not my conscience. In time, Kimball, with most of it spent in Fallujah, I had fifty-two kills under my belt. Then the day came when number fifty-three fell within my crosshairs; a terrorist with an RPG. I had a clean shot—saw an opening. But I didn’t take it. A second later, a military Humvee fully occupied with American troops turned onto the street. And due to my inaction to pull the trigger the hostile was able to get off the shot, killing all inside. Four good Americans lost because I suddenly had a pang of conscience and couldn’t pull the trigger. Not after fifty-two recorded kills. And to this day I’m not sure why I failed to perform my duty.”

  Kimball took everything that Father Ferrano said with absorption. Though his story differed greatly from Kimball’s, he wasn’t much off the target either. Kimball absconded from his duty as an assassin after an epiphanic moment when he killed two shepherd boys who compromised his position in Iraq.

  “What about you?” Father Ferrano asked him. “Your first kill, I mean.”

  Kimball hesitated before answering. “I was seventeen,” he answered. “I killed the man who murdered my mother.” The Vatican Knight offered nothing more sin
ce there was nothing to add. When he made his first kill, he did so out of anger and nothing else. There was no remorse or contrition. Kimball simply felt hollow and without guilt for what he had done. But like Father Ferrano, he was able to justify his actions and accept them in time. Then he thought about how easy it was to justify any action over time, no matter how heinous that act may be. The easiest thing man could do, he told himself, is to justify the terrible things he has done in life.

  “And after that?” the priest asked him.

  “You know what I did. I worked as a black-arm operative for the CIA as an assassin.”

  “I know that. And I know that Bonasero Vessucci saw something special in you. What he saw in you was the quality of a good man who seeks the Light, but also a man who is unable to find it because he cannot forgive himself. I, on the other hand, have moved past the guilt. On that day when I failed to perform my duty to save the lives of four good Americans when I could have prevented it, I lost all respect from my peers and from myself. The church, like you, gave me hope. To seek salvation from God, I swore that I’d never raise a weapon against another man again. Never. So now I work the field in the Middle East, usually with the Mossad, to gather evidence I hope will save the lives of others.”

  Kimball remained quiet, the Vatican Knight not wanting to share his thoughts about his feelings or emotions, since it wasn’t in his makeup to do so.

  After they crossed the bridge and made their way to the coroner’s office, the air between them was one of silence. When they finally arrived, they exited the vehicle and entered the building.

  When they approached the service desk, Father Ferrano showed his credentials and was told to sign the log book, along with Kimball, whose cursory chickenscratch was undecipherable.

  After passing through the newly formed security checkpoints they were escorted to an examining room that held the body of the assassin. Inside were three investigators from the New Scotland Yard, who seemed rather perplexed upon the interruption of two priests who entered the room.