by Rick Jones
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” he told her. “Especially about what just happened back there between you and Kimball.”
Gesturing for Isaiah to take a seat before her desk, Shari returned to hers and said, “I thought he was gone. I didn’t think he would come back.”
“You left the Bureau.”
“D.C. didn’t have anything to offer me. The city was nothing but a reminder of what I had and lost. My family. Kimball. My spirit. When I saw Kimball lying in that bed and the physicians prognosing that if he came to, he’d be little more than a vegetable. I couldn’t see a man like him turn into something like that. Not with what he’d been through. I wanted the man the Kimball used to be. And when he walked through that door, Isaiah, to see him like that made my heart skip. I never expected . . .” She let her words trail.
“None of us expected him to pull through. But we all prayed for him. Perhaps there is something in the power of prayer after all.”
She rubbed around her eyes for errant tears, and then: “How is he, Isaiah?”
“He’s good. He really is. Physically and emotionally he’s at the top of his game. We both know that Kimball was not in a good place. He hadn’t been for a long time. For people to finally realize that they need help, they first have to hit rock bottom. And Kimball was broken in every way a man could be. With his drinking and losing his fight with his own personal demons, I think he finally hit that landmark. But there was something else.”
She cocked her head questioningly. “He claims to have seen a distant light, perhaps the Great Illumination. Or perhaps the imagination of his own mind. He doesn’t know which. But it influenced him for the better.”
“That’s good.”
Isaiah intuited that Shari wanted to learn more of Kimball’s condition, especially his inability of recall and remembrance. After easing back into his seat and reading the lines on Shari’s face and the worried creases on her brow, he said, “One of the side effects of Kimball’s condition, however, is memory loss. There are gaps, or holes, that have been rendered dormant or missing. There’s no telling if he’ll get this recall back; the doctors have no idea.”
“He had no idea who I was,” she told him with a voice that was on the brink of cracking and her emotion swelling. “I’m not even an afterthought or a name or a memory to him. I’m a stranger.”
“I know this isn’t going to help, Shari, but Kimball has no memory of Leviticus, and they were like brothers.”
“What about Bonasero? They were like father and son.”
“Kimball remembers him. But if something good was to come out of this, he barely remembers the incident that nearly took his life. He remembers the Light and the voice of an angel, that’s pretty much it.”
Shari recounted the moment in her mind’s eye while in the back of the EM van. Kimball was a broken man, emotionally, mentally and physically, nothing but a twisted form that had been strapped onto a gurney. Then the moment he flatlined as the flicker of life in his eyes seemed to fade away, as the paramedic tried to resuscitate him, she could remember calling his name and begging him to come back, which he did eventually, but not as whole as when he left.
. . . I won’t lie to you Ms. Cohen . . .
. . . He’s in bad shape . . . Broken bones . . . Internal damage . . . Head trauma . . .
. . . You might want to visit the chapel on this one . . .
. . . If he ever comes to, he’d most likely be a vegetable or close to one . . .
All horrible words from the doctors, all pessimistic. But in the end, whether by divine intervention or by Kimball’s own personal conviction, he had stood before her bearing the marks of his ongoing battle between life and death. The only stipulation to be able to rise from the depths of his own personal darkness, however, was to hit the reset button. Gone was his self-pity and self-loathing. Gone was the imbibing of alcohol, his choice of medicine. And gone were some of the memories that had dragged him down into the dark and kept him there. Kimball had been reborn, the man breaking free from his poisonous cocoon, a soured membrane, which had trapped him for so long.
Was I bringing him down? she wondered. He wanted more than the life of a Vatican Knight.
More remembrances of Kimball’s final words came to her, when he was nearly killed on that day. She could see him lying on the grass with his legs twisted at odd angles in numerous places from multiple breaks. She saw his charred arm and the cooked meat beneath damaged flesh. And she heard the voice of a man who was desperate for the simple things in life.
. . . I want a small house with a white-picket fence . . .
. . . And roses . . . You have to have a rose garden . . .
. . . And two kids. The boy has to look like me . . . and the girl has to look like you . . .
. . . And a dog . . . A golden retriever . . . I want a golden retriever. They’re kind dogs . . .
Not only were the images clear in her mind, they were painful ones. After spelling out his wishes and wants in detail, after telling her in so many words that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, Kimball had faded away.
. . . I won’t lie to you Ms. Cohen . . . He’s in bad shape . . . If he ever comes to, he’d most likely be a vegetable or close to one . . .
Even now, as she sat at her desk, she wanted to sob if not for Isaiah sitting before her.
“I’m sorry, Shari,” the Vatican Knight finally told her. “I know what you both meant to each other. Kimball didn’t say as much, but we all knew how he felt.” After a lapse, he added, “Maybe, his situation isn’t permanent. Maybe, in time, he will remember.”
“And maybe,” she said, “it would be better if he didn’t. I can’t help the feeling that in some way I dragged him down because I didn’t reciprocate when I should have.”
“It’s not your fault, Shari. None of this is. Kimball was bringing himself down with his drinking and from lack of faith.”
She nodded as if she was confirming what Isaiah was telling her, though deep down she still felt differently.
Isaiah could still see her torment, however. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “Kimball is where he should be. He’s leading and he’s making a difference.”
Then Shari wondered if she was being selfish by wanting Kimball to remember her, to want to be in his arms where their wants and needs of each other were equal. But then she fell back to what Isaiah had just told her: Kimball is where he should be. He’s leading and he’s making a difference. In other words: he’s happy.
Shari feigned a smile to Isaiah, then said, “Thank you for giving me this moment. I’m glad Kimball pulled through, even though the odds were against him. I’m happy for him.”
Isaiah got to his feet. “I understand you’ll be joining us on the search and rescue.”
She nodded. “I’m to gather data pertinent to the location of certain targets of interest.”
After looking over the office, whose walls were bare, Isaiah stated, “Of all places to find you, Shari.”
“I know,” she answered. “Small world, isn’t it?”
“Or maybe it was meant to be.”
Giving her a wink and a smile, Isaiah exited her office leaving Shari to wonder if it was meant to be, this reunion between her and Kimball.
Deep in her heart she hoped so.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Somewhere within the Syrian Theater of Operation
The afternoon session of training had been a difficult one which resulted in two injuries: a broken arm and a gashed leg that required more than forty stitches.
After the surgeons were remanded to a certain part of the cave system while under the watchful eye of Ali’s most seasoned veterans, they were forced to stack medical supplies that had been pillaged from the DWB campsite against the wall of a provisional medical area. Surgical tables were made of aged wood with splintered edges, the surface already stained with blood that had seeped into the pores and dried. The floor was desert sand whereas the walls were uneven st
one. And the area was small and cramped and feebly lit by the light of a single lantern.
After the surgeries were completed and the injured carted off, Doctors Gregor and Mayne, along with the staff members which included Father Savino, removed their medical masks and set them aside. Exhausted, these men sat with their backs against the wall and huddled together within the weak circle of light.
“Today” Doctor Gregor began, “we heal two. Tomorrow, twenty. Thereafter, two hundred twenty.”
“At least we have enough purpose to stay alive,” one of the male nurses remarked.
“By doing what?” Doctor Mayne returned. “By healing the wounded so that they can live another day to kill more innocent people?” Then he looked at his hands wondering if they were the hands of a healer, or the hands of someone who resurrects those to become the monsters of a future. Doctor Mayne suddenly found himself standing at a crossroads wondering if he was doing the right thing by upholding the Hippocratic oath, or simply the cog in a machine that churns out assassins who prey upon the weak and the defenseless. Coming to no conclusion, he leaned his head against the stone wall and closed his eyes.
Father Savino, who aided in the stitching of the gash, had the front of his apron bloodied, something he examined with disbelieving eyes, for some reason. He couldn’t figure it out—couldn’t seem to understand why his surgical apron glistened like tar in the anemic light. And like Doctor Mayne, he rested the back of his head against the stone wall, wondering what the future may hold for them.
“Maybe during the night,” one of the nurses suggested, “when everyone’s asleep—”
“Do you want to die?” Gregor asked him sharply. “Did you not see the heads hanging on the poles outside? They’re there for a reason, something I can gather as a warning as not what to do, like running through a desert landscape when we have no idea where we are.”
The male nurse turned on Doctor Gregor. “If you had bugged out when the military insisted, none of us would be in this mess.”
“So now we’re pointing fingers at each other? I didn’t force you to stay. You had freedom of choice. And you decided to stay, a noble choice for sure. But don’t sit there and accuse me of making that decision for you when I didn’t. You could have vacated. I didn’t break your arm to stay.”
“You didn’t have to. I could see it in your eyes that if I left, if any of us left, you would have branded us as cowards. And what would you have done then, file a complaint with the administers of the DWB, telling them that we weren’t suitable to assist on future runs?”
Doctor Gregor waved a dismissive hand at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I gave you no such look. Besides, what you think you saw is the fault of your own. Just because you—”
“Enough,” Father Savino intervened. And then: “We’re all on edge. We’re frightened. I get that. And the natural thing to do is to blame others for the situation we’re in. Somehow, releasing this type of anger can be medicinal, or it can fester and become a great darkness within us. What we need to do is to accept our current situation and adapt.”
Doctor Mayne, with his eyes still closed, said, “Adapt to what, Father? Do you have any idea why we’re still alive? What our purpose is?”
“To heal the injured and the sick.”
“True to a sense. But we’re mending animals who will eventually find the drive to kill innocent people once they heal. Is that something you and the church can live with?”
Father Savino remained quiet for a long time, and then: “What I’m saying is that we must not turn against each other, since that’s all we have at the moment. We have each other.”
“Dodging the moral aspects of my question, I see,” said Doctor Mayne.
“We are not responsible for the action of others once we provide them with aid. What we are responsible for is to help those, no matter the direction of their moral compass, since actions are judged upon by God and not by us, who will determine their eternal fate.”
Doctor Mayne started to clap mockingly. “Nice come back, Father. But it doesn’t lessen the self-conflicting emotions I appear to be captured by. We cure these people; they will continue their march across the landscape. And that’s a fact.”
Father Savino stood up and went to the makeshift operating table, a filthy platform stained with fresh and aged blood. Was this table a launching pad which was to be used to save lives only to have those same people rise and wreak havoc? One terrorist at a time?
It is not for me to judge, the priest reminded himself. And I stand by that conviction. I am to help the needy in all colors and religious orientation. The old and the young, the infirm and the strong, the spiritual and the guilty—everyone who draws a breath. In the end, final judgment is the vocation of God. I am simply His messenger.
Staying true to himself, others, however, were foolishly plotting escapes in the background with few whisperings amongst themselves, the cliques already developing. But the priest knew that courage would abandon them in the end.
Removing his bloodied scrubs, he tossed them aside where they lay on the ground.
And as he stood with little room to move around, he clasped his hands together in an attitude of prayer and began to speak hushed words in prayer. No one joined in or held the belief that God would intervene, because here God was powerless.
They had never been so wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Somewhere within the Syrian Theater of Operation
At the moment, there was no one more elusive than Junaid Hassad. To his people he was a prophet. To his enemies he was a false prophet. Either way, Junaid Hassad was a wanted man by the CIA, the Mossad, MI6, or any intelligence agency that had a stake in making the world community a safer place to live.
Hassad often made quick appearances with his golden tongue, inciting rage and madness and romanticism with powerful words carefully constructed to advocate the power of Allah. In minutes he would appeal to the masses until they fist pumped the air with shouts of Allahu Akbar! Such rallies, for the most part, were safe from the drones that circled overhead because the civilian population was not expendable in the court of public opinion, especially in the eyes of The Hague. But the well-placed sniper, perhaps in Arab clothing, was always a threat if he had a long-range rifle that could remove the one instead of the many, a deadly option. After whipping crowds into a frenzy with powerful words in the minimal time allotted, Hassad disappeared, the man a ghost within this reforming kingdom.
Ducking under the lifted cloaks of his bodyguards, Junaid Hassad disappeared like magic. Taking a series of underground tunnels that led to his armored vehicle, a Mercedes, he was quietly whisked away from the crowd. While he was sitting inside the air-conditioned vehicle, he received a satellite call from Ahmed Ali. He hit the button on the seat before him to enable the call.
“Yes, Ahmed. How are the troops developing?”
“Fine, Junaid. A good crop for sure. Allah is smiling down on us for sure.”
“That’s good to hear, Ahmed.”
“But I am embarrassed, Junaid, of what I’m about to tell you.”
Junaid Hassad had patience for most things; bad news, however, was not one of them. “Go ahead.”
“We discovered an infiltrator whom we believe was a CIA asset.”
“CIA?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Upon his person was a drone, high-tech, one we believe had video and audio capabilities.”
“Was the device activated?”
“Unknown.”
“Did the operative expound on its capabilities?”
“He denied everything.”
“There are ways to get all men to talk, Ahmed.”
“We’ve tried everything, Junaid. Believe me.”
“And the operative?”
“Handled accordingly.”
“And you have no idea if anything of value got through to the principals involved, is that what you’re telling me?”
>
“Unknown. But we never spoke of the pending mission or of your location.”
“At least that’s good news, yes?” After taking in a breath and sighing through his nose, he added, “We will take no chances. If the coordinates have been relayed, that opens the camp to a possible sortie from Predator drones.”
“Surely, they would not destroy the lives of the hostages.”
“If the operation is secretive, they can forward propaganda to their news media that the Islamic State had killed everyone involved with the DWB encampment. This shaping of news stories has been done in the past and will continue to be manipulated in the future, as long as it serves their purposes. Everyone, including the doctors, will be judged expendable to accomplish a political need, believe me.”
“Then we should take no chances but to assume that data may have been sent.”
“Not overwhelming data, for sure. But enough to tell them where you are.”
“Come morning, we’ll break camp and move the training process to the camp in the south.”
“A wise decision, Ahmed. And Ahmed?”
“Yes, Junaid.”
“As much as I love you as a brother, do not allow something like this to happen again.”
“Yes, Junaid. I apologize.”
“Don’t apologize, my brother. See this done.” Clicking the button to kill the connection, Junaid Hassad leaned back into the comfort of his seat and continued east where he would galvanize the hearts of many to fight in the name of Allah.
* * *
Ahmed Ali thumbed the satellite phone off, which was his only means of direct communication to Hassad, then placed it on a crate. A lamp was on, the lighting poor, the area steeped in shadows.
Ali had disappointed himself by allowing a CIA operative to creep into the ranks. Damage was most likely done, their position compromised. Predator drones, if they hadn’t been already, would be flying overhead in search of targets. Furthermore, after talking to Hassad, it was made very clear to him that any future mishaps would be met with dire consequences, no matter how special Ali was to the organization.