by Rick Jones
#
The emergency bulbs began to flash intermittently, which was not a good sign to Mordecai as he took the corridor that led to the hospital’s Recovery areas. When he heard the advancement of the Arma dei Carabinieri, he took position by getting to a bended knee and taking aim, his accuracy always lethal.
When the first wave of four broke through the swinging doors, Mordecai sent off a series of quick bursts, the rounds finding the soft spot of their throats or smashing through their face shields, the shots killing them before they hit the ground.
Then Mordecai was on the move knowing that the gunfire would draw more to his position. So he kept low and used the point of his weapon to guide him. His head was on a swivel, first turning left, then right, the man searching for targets to terminate.
The hallways were vacant, the nearby rooms empty. All of which Mordecai found odd.
Then came the sound of several footfalls running towards his position.
Mordecai quickly entered a room off the corridor and locked the bolt to the door behind him. In seconds the four bodies of the Arma dei Carabinieri would be found and their discovery radioed in for backup.
Mordecai slowly eased his way into the room with his weapon directed at the door, willing to strafe it if necessary. But from beneath the door he could see several shadows pass by. When they were gone, Mordecai waited and stood as still as a marble sculpture, waiting for others that never came.
The room he was in was a storage area filled with bleaches for laundry and clean linen. In the back was another locked door.
After drawing back the bolt and pulling the door wide, he saw that it led to another series of corridors, all empty.
They know I’m here.
He entered a curved hallway and scoped his surroundings through the lens of his weapon. The Recovery areas were close, maybe an annex away.
Then from the wing’s west end came a rush of footfalls from the Arma dei Carabinieri, the troops closing in. From the east, same thing, footfalls. They were closing in on Mordecai in a flank maneuver, forcing him into an inescapable point. And because the hallway was curved, the Arma dei Carabinieri would not be in the line of fire from the flanking team, so gunfire could come from both sides.
The footsteps became louder, closer, the Arma dei Carabinieri almost on top of him.
Then he checked the button that was wired to the Semtex bricks beneath his vest.
The Arma dei Carabinieri were upon him from behind and in the front, and took position with the officers directing their assault weapons to center mass. More than a dozen red dots from laser sights danced around Mordecai’s chest and head.
Commands were shouted for Mordecai’s submission, but dismissed as Mordecai surveyed his surroundings and noted the cameras located at the corners of the hallway. They’d been watching me all along.
More orders and commands to get on the ground, orders that were loud and had gone unheeded by Mordecai as he stood center stage.
In response, Mordecai raised his weapon and sent off short bursts, the rounds striking the domed faceplates of the Arma dei Carabinieri, the impacts causing fatal explosions of red mist to burst outward as rolling plumes.
Three of the armed guards went down, fast, their lives having been smashed from their bodies before they had a chance to register their deaths.
Then gunfire erupted from the Arma dei Carabinieri, continuous bursts as bullets pounded at Mordecai’s vest, his body reacting like a puppet dancing awkwardly by the pull of strings. Then he went to his knees.
More gunfire.
A round struck the composite of his forearm guard, the impact strong enough to send the weapon free from his grasp. Mordecai was being pounded with additional rounds, the high calibers knocking him around until a bullet found the soft spot of his hip, another finding his shoulder, and still another tearing into his lower stomach just below the lining of his Kevlar.
As Mordecai lay there, as his world began to spin with dizzying effect, he could hear the voices, the whispers, the chants from the Luminaries directing him to take life, any life, the man having been stripped of all rudimentary reasoning.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, of course.”
Mordecai could feel the switch in his right hand, then gripped the cylinder by curling his hand around it and then laying his thumb upon the button.
The voices were getting louder. The words overlapping one another until the sounds became nonsensical. But he knew what they were telling him, what he had been groomed to do, what the Luminaries taught him over the past three years deep inside the Brazilian jungle.
In the periphery of his vision he could see the Arma dei Carabinieri moving forward with their weapons directed at him and speaking Italian, harshly, something Mordecai took to be orders to surrender.
The guards stood over him, vague images standing shoulder to shoulder, all blurry. But when a guard flipped Mordecai on his side to cuff him, Mordecai—feeling no fear, no anger, absolutely no range of emotion—depressed the button.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mordecai had been close.
The walls to the annex attached to the Recovery area exploded outward with incredible force, the walls collapsing, the debris hurtling through space, such as broken shards of glass and chunks of concrete, with projectiles causing injury and damage within a radius that was one-quarter of a mile from Ground Zero.
Support structures and beams had been weakened, compromising the strength of the building to sustain itself. Within a minute after the blast the annex crumbled, the building falling straight downward as if imploding. Boils and rolls of smoke grew and expanded, flourishing and spreading forward and upward in all directions. Cloying dust filled the air, chokingly thick, cutting visibility down to nothing.
But when the dust settled, as screams continued to fill the air as the senses of the people turned from shock to fear, then to tears and to the unanswerable question of ‘why?,’ the world suddenly seemed to move with the slowness of a horrific dream.
A second attempt on Bonasero’s life had been committed.
And out there, somewhere, four more Knights were unaccounted for.
#
The rooms to the Recovery area shuddered, and strongly. Glass to cabinet doors broke against the wave of the explosion. Items fell from the tabletops and to the floor. Poles holding saline bags tipped over. And dust clouds rushed down the hallways in a fury to take new ground, the boiling drifts of smoke filling the Recovery rooms with a heavy, dust-laden haze. As the concussion of the blast knocked the guards of the Arma dei Carabinieri off their feet outside the Recovery Room, Kimball draped himself over the pontiff and made sure his oxygen mask stayed on, while Leviticus and Isaiah steadied themselves against stainless steel tables.
When the shaking settled and the dust clouds began to dissipate, Kimball checked the respirator. Despite the explosion in the adjoining annex, everything in the Recovery areas remained intact—though the lights did flicker and threatened to die off at one point.
“The pontiff?” Leviticus immediately asked with concern. Isaiah was standing beside him.
Kimball drew away from the pope who continued to lay in gentle repose with his chest rising and falling in even rhythm. As time passed, chalky dust began to settle over the once pristine sheets and over the area in general, giving the entire surroundings a coating of gray particles that was as fine as talcum powder.
“As long as the power stays on he’ll be fine.” Kimball pointed to the respirator, which didn’t appear to flounder in the aftermath of the annex’s fall.
“He’s fine,” said Kimball. Then with urgency and command: “We need to move Bonasero as quickly as possible. Gemelli’s no longer safe. And it’s clear that Phinehas isn’t acting alone.”
“Away from Rome?” asked Isaiah.
Kimball nodded. “I don’t think he could handle a lengthy move. I was thinking more along the lines of the papal chamber. We can set up an infirmary there. Have around-the-clock physici
ans. Nurses. We can manage enough security there to keep him safe.”
“Kimball, even a small move to the Vatican could prove fatal,” said Leviticus.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” he returned. “Whoever set off that explosion came close to taking Bonasero out. We know where Phinehas is. What we don’t know is how many more are out there. If they’re the missing Vatican Knights, then we need to set perimeter defenses using the Swiss Guard, the Vatican Security, the Gendarmerie, and a force of Vatican Knights as the last line of resistance.”
Isaiah stood over Bonasero Vessucci watching his chest rise and fall. “We need answers,” he said. “The best defense is knowing your opponent enough to determine his next move.”
Isaiah was right. Knowing your enemy was critical to future successes in combat engagement. Operators were often stuck to routines that never failed them in the past, which is why they became listed protocols. But habits tend to get discovered by the opposition who eventually learn to counter said methods. And that’s what the Vatican Knights needed to do: to learn and counter.
And Kimball knew exactly where to start.
He would start with Phinehas.
CHAPTER NINE
In the aftermath of the Gemelli explosion, the tally of dead stood at twenty-six with fifteen wounded, six critically, with thirteen people still missing. Eighteen of those were Arma dei Carabinieri operatives. Whereas the others were a mixture of doctors, nurses and patients, most of whom died during the building’s collapse. The Arma dei Carabinieri, of course, perishing during the initial blast when the Semtex vest went off.
In the subsequent moments, Bonasero Vessucci was prepped for transport with as much possible care to see that the journey would be a successful one. Kimball, Isaiah and Leviticus traveled inside the cube-like ambulance, with the pontiff remaining in critical, but stable condition.
As soon as they reached the Apostolic Palace, the pontiff was carefully transported to the Papal Apartments located on the third level. The residences were actually a collection of apartments that completely surrounded the Courtyard of Sixtus V.
In the rear section of the Palace were a series of adjoining rooms that were set up as a makeshift infirmary. Medical devices, all portable, were on hand such as a Vital Signs Monitor, oxygen cylinders, flow meters, a backup power supply unit, regulators, everything necessary to maintain the stability of the pope’s condition. The caveat, however, was that the apartments paled in comparison to a real infirmary inside of Gemelli.
The security had been beefed up exponentially with the Gendarmerie and Vatican Security serving as the first line of defense along the border between Rome and Vatican City, with St. Peter’s Square and all points of interest cordoned off. The Swiss Guard maintained vigil at all major posts, such as the Basilica and secondary palaces. And a unit of Vatican Knights, a field team of twelve warriors, manned the entrances and hallways to the Apostolic Palace.
Pope Pius lay on the bed. His breathing was shallow but steady, his pallor remaining gray. And Kimball sat alongside the bed holding the pontiff’s hand within his two in gentle embrace. Kimball was pained—deeply. He had lost men in the battlefield, had felt the drain of emotion every time he had to bury a Vatican Knight. And he had never prayed to God for the divine intervention of men, ever, believing that all men must find within themselves the righteous fortitude to move along. It was something he had failed to find in himself, that state of redemption, that eclipsing feeling of warmth and goodness that salvation and Heavenly forgiveness should deliver.
So Kimball closed his eyes, bowed his head, and for the first time in his life he prayed silently, the man asking for favors not for himself, but for the old man who lay upon the bed representing the good of all men.
When he was done he opened his eyes and looked at his old friend, his father. Then he looked at the respirator and the way it rose and fell steadily, filling the pontiff’s fragile lungs with oxygen.
“Everything’s in place,” Leviticus said softly over Kimball’s shoulder. “Security measures. Power sources. We’re good.”
Kimball nodded. Then he got to his feet, and to his full height of six four, and stood tall with his broad shoulders and wide chest. Then he laid the old man’s hand gently by his side and gave it a light pat of reassurance. Everything’s going to be all right, Bonasero.
The respirator continued to work.
Kimball faced Leviticus. “You up for this?”
Leviticus nodded. “Of course.”
“Then let’s go get some answers.”
CHAPTER TEN
It had been a while since Phinehas had heard the voices—the whispers from the Luminaries. For several hours he sat inside the jail cell of the Gendarmerie station with his eyes staring at nothing in particular—as if he was hypnotically obsessed with a point on the wall that only he could see. But he had been in situations like this before, sitting in closed-in spaces where time had no meaning when one second, one minute, one hour, one day, a single month all ran together as endless time.
For the past three years of his life he had little recollection and vague memories, remembering snippets of shadows and shapes and the pain they provided. He remembered being bound at the ankles and wrists. The hunger and thirst. He recalled the moments of cloaked figures in woolen cowls, their faces always hidden in darkness.
And then the voices, the horrible whispers, somehow erasing all that he was by eliminating all righteous virtues and pious beliefs, and giving him a new set of rules that would govern him without the fear of consequence or moral judgment.
Vague images.
Endless time.
But not everything had been wiped away.
He remembered Kimball Hayden—remembered him as a man who was lost, like him. He had unclear remembrances of serving beside the large man in combat—could see in his mind’s eye the moments of battle, but not the bloodshed.
And then the images disappeared, his mind going vacant, tuning out until there was no thought at all, only a mental vacuum.
But when he heard the bolts to the outer door pull back, his eyes immediately engaged his surroundings. After a series of additional bolts and levers retracted, his cell door opened. Three officers of the Gendarmerie entered the room. One held a Taser, one a baton, and the third a set of belly chains and legs irons. When the officer holding the chains lifted them and issued orders in Italian, Phinehas understood the gist of what he was saying: We could do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.
Looking at the officers holding the baton and the Taser, Phinehas complied and offered himself to be chained.
#
Kimball and Leviticus were sitting inside a small interrogation room with no windows and walls that were peeling with paint. High on the wall where the corners met hung a camera, its red light in the ‘on’ mode. And in the center of the room stood a stainless steel table that was firmly anchored to the concrete floor.
When the officers ushered Phinehas into the area, they sat him down, cuffed him to a metal eye-ring attached to the table, and exited, locking the metal door behind them.
Phinehas looked at the two men sitting across the table from him, but said nothing. He simply stared at them with a certain vacancy to his eyes.
“Phinehas,” Kimball said evenly, “I need answers. And you’re going to give them to me.”
And just as evenly Phinehas responded: “Of course.”
“I need to know where you’ve been for the past three years. What happened to Shepherd One and everyone onboard?”
Phinehas appeared to struggle with this as his line of vision drifted slowly toward the ceiling, his mind obviously searching. “The plane,” he finally said, his eyes remaining neutral, like the measure of his voice.
“Shepherd One disappeared over the jungles of Brazil,” Kimball said. “We thought the plane crashed. But there was no debris field or traces of impact.”
Phinehas nodded. “No. There wouldn’t be.”
“Wh
y? What happened?”
Phinehas remained quiet.
“Phinehas,” Kimball was beginning to sound on edge. “What . . . happened?”
“The Luminaries is what happened. They called us home.”
Kimball looked at Leviticus, who gave a light I-haven’t-a-clue-about-what-he’s-talking-about shrug.
“You mentioned these Luminaries before,” Kimball went on. “Did they send you here? Did you come alone?”
“Of course not,” he said simply, as if it was supposed to be common knowledge. “I came with Mordecai.”
“There is no one else? Just you and Mordecai?”
“For now.”
Mordecai was the second man inside Gemelli---a suicide bomber who went against all the teachings of a Vatican Knight by committing suicide, when suicide was a mortal sin that led to an eternity of damnation. At least for the moment Kimball knew that both men involved with the attempt on Bonasero’s life were now accounted for. “Just the two of you? No more?”
“For now.”
“For now? So you’re saying there’re others who survived? What about Eli and Jacob? Kish and Zadok? What about them? Are they alive?”
Phinehas leaned forward with the features of his face beginning to move with nervous tics as if struggling through a sudden warring of emotions.
“Phinehas?” This coming from Leviticus.
The former Knight quickly regained his composure, his features once again neutral.
“Phinehas,” Kimball stated calmly, “What about the cardinals you were with? What happened to them?”
Phinehas nodded in affirmation. “The cardinals are in the Lost Cathedral,” he said. “They sit and worship the symbol every day.”
“The Lost Cathedral?”
“The Palace of Fallen Angels—where the Triumvirate of Luminaries sit upon the thrones.”
“These Luminaries. Did they do this to you?”
“Do what?”