by Joseph Nagle
All members of parliament were on their feet shouting an uproarious praise to President Ahmad, the guards in the different corners of the room had their weapons raised high above their heads extolling their leader. Outside, in the streets of Tehran, the chaos of pain turned into roars of acclaim for the President. The mob was jumping up and down in unison and chanted for their President.
Inside, Ahmad continued, “People of Iran, members of our legislation, and learned clerics: Article 176 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran grants me authority over our country’s defense. As your President, and as the presiding head of the Supreme National Security Council, and with the blessing of the Guardians: I DECLARE WAR, a HOLY WAR on the United States of America, and on all who side with her!”
The masses in the streets erupted in a deafening cheer, galvanized by the words of the President; their thirst for American blood was palpable in the air. The remaining 289 Majlis had all long ago jumped to their feet and were now running to the front of the assembly; they encircled the President with their support. Behind the President, the members of the Guardian Council exchanged uneasy glances to one another.
In the Oval Office, the President was silenced by disbelief and unable to speak.
General Zachary Diedrick, The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood and was looking down on the President and said, “Mr. President, I suggest that we find our way back to the Situation Room.”
There was no response from the President; he just stared in blank fear at the monitor affixed to the wall.
“Mr. President, your orders, sir?”
His attention snapping back, the President shot a ghostly gaze up to the General and ordered, “I want everyone there in ten minutes. Make it happen, General.”
The General’s aide was already running from the room screaming into his cell phone.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Leonardo da Vinci Airport
Rome, Italy
The winds at Fiumicino were light today; the pilot of Iran Air Flight 217 from Tehran was relieved and offered a silent blessing to Allah. He disliked flying into Leonardo da Vinci Airport during this time of year; the swirling winds that typically plagued the airport usually forced international flights to land on the shorter 07/25 runway which made for heart stopping landings. The voice from the control tower directed him, instead, to runway 16L/34R which was nearly two-thousand feet longer, with further taxiing onto 16C/34C.
After taxiing for five minutes, the plane came to a jolting stop at terminal C, and, quickly, the jet way was brought to its door to release the anxious passengers. The assassin listened for the impending groans and grinding sounds that signaled that the plane was permanently immobile.
Disorganized and noisily, the passengers disembarked. The last seven-hours had been the assassin’s personal hell; he had been unable to find any shred of peace stuck between his two demons. His hands ached from keeping them balled so tight and for so long. Opening them, the fleshy parts of the palm of each aching hand displayed the bloody marks from where his nails had dug deeply into them.
The international terminal was bustling with Europeans, North Africans, Americans, and Arabs. The mixture of people offered the assassin a canvas of victims that would easily satisfy his thirst. The urge to pray persisted, so did the urge to kill.
Walking through the terminal, he noticed that a large crowd had gathered around an overhead monitor, on it CNN was flashing breaking news. The female anchor appeared flustered. Stepping closer, the assassin saw his President speaking. It was a recording of a live broadcast from earlier. Superimposed underneath the face of President Ahmad was the word: “WAR!”
The people in the crowd stood staring, some ambivalent others seemingly frightened. He overheard the conversation of two American men nearest to him, “Just another political game. Iran has no real military capability. What are they going to do, ride their camels to the ocean and yell at the Navy?”
The second man shook his head and laughed a bit, “They’d probably fall off their camels before hitting the border. The only thing they are good at is standing in a circle burning US flags, and stoning their women. What a bunch of idiots, who does this Ahmad think he is messing with? The guy was a fucking history teacher before he picked up a rifle and called himself their messiah.”
“We should just do the world a favor and drop the big one on them, everyone would be happier.”
“And safer.”
The assassin’s rage was burning at his core; he was disgusted by the two American infidels. Patience, he reminded himself. He would let them have their moment of misguided disrespect. Only he, among them, understood just how real it was. War would occur; he was in Rome to make sure of this. A great sense of pride washed over him and he smiled; the shaking in his hands had found a reason to stop, but it would only be temporary. Turning, he walked away knowing that the two Americans would soon taste the power of Allah.
At ground transportation, the taxi driver was friendly enough. He opened the door of the white fiat station wagon for the assassin and welcomed him, “Bon giorno a Italia, signore, to which hotel?”
The assassin grunted, “Hotel Bramante, do you know it?”
“Si, of course, sir, I know every hotel near the Vatican, it is required.”
“How long before we get there?”
The assassin wanted to get to the hotel soon; he was impatient and tired and wanted to pray properly. Ablution was the only way to atone for the thoughts that had run torrid through his mind during the flight; thoughts he knew would soon start to swirl once more in his head.
“It’s about thirty kilometers, at this time of day we should arrive to Bramante in less than thirty minutes. First time to Rome, eh? You will love my country, so much beauty, so much history.”
The assassin silently agreed to the abundance of history that Rome had to offer, but the history he knew was a plague to him, there was no love for this land. There is much history of violence and brutality on my people, misery is what your infidel country has brought to this world. I will love your country more once I am through with the Pope, thought the assassin.
The driver of the taxi took the A91 to the A90 catching Via Aurelia to Viale Vaticano. He drove with little fear of the other traffic, and ignored the blaring from the horns around him. The driver was swerving around cars and into and out of the highway lanes every chance he could get. He never once seemed to touch the brakes. The assassin sat oblivious.
Soon, they approached the West side of the Vatican’s walled exterior, but would have to drive around it to get to the Hotel. The driver took the road to the North side of the sovereign nation driving parallel to and around the tiny nation. The assassin stared at the wall, somewhere on the other side of the fifteen-meter high stone barrier one of the Vatican’s 821 inhabitants was the Pope. Fittingly, the Pontiff would be soon enjoying his last supper unaware that his life was going to end. The assassin could feel his pulse quicken, and his temperature beginning to rise.
“It is beautiful, no?” The taxi driver broke the silence of the ride.
The assassin said nothing. He sat in the back seat with his eyes closed; his lips moved slightly as he uttered a quiet prayer.
“You are here to enjoy Roma’s beauty? She is magnifico, yes?”
“No.” The assassin never opened his eyes but his cold response startled the driver.
“No? I misunderstand, perhaps you…”
“Stop talking and just drive.” I want nothing more than to end you.
There was an ice in his passenger’s voice telling the driver to comply without protest, “As you wish, sir,” the driver had every desire to slam on the breaks and dump the big, sweaty Persian into the streets, but he needed the money. This was the slow season for tourists and the seventy Euros plus the extra ten Euros he would quietly add to the fare would be well received. Biting his tongue, he held back the urge to protest and drove on; unknowingly it had been a good choice.
The sk
y had long turned dark, and the assassin still had to pray appropriately.
The taxi arrived at Hotel Bramante and the taxi driver nervously said, “Eighty Euros, please.”
The assassin pulled out the thick roll or Euros and handed the drive a one-hundred Euro note. The driver took the bill; thinking he could pad the bill even more, he said, “I don’t have change.”
The assassin’s hand slashed through the air and grabbed the man by the back of his hair and forcibly yanked the driver’s head backward. Leaning closer to the man, he growled, “Find some.”
The taxi driver quickly fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a small stack of Euros and peeled away a twenty which the assassin snatched from his hand.
Inside the hotel, he checked in with the front desk and gave the young, handsome clerk his forged passport.
Smiling at the assassin, the clerk cheerfully said, “Signore, we have prepared the specific room that you requested. I am happy to know that you have enjoyed our little family hotel before. Welcome back. Here is your Passport back, I no longer need it.”
With the check-in formalities accomplished, the clerk escorted the assassin to his room and felt the need to explain every detail of the ancient hotel to his new guest as they made their way.
“This hotel has been in my family since 1873 and was built in the 16th century by Domenico Fontana, the same Swiss architect that raised the obelisk in the middle of St Peter’s square. After some time, the Church banished the man from Rome. They did so because they disliked his designs amongst other reasons.”
“Are we near my room?” The assassin had long since grown tired of these talkative Italians.
“Yes, we are nearly there, you appear tired. I believe you will find the room quite comfortable. You will sleep like – how do the Americans say it – like a baby.”
The two men walked past an erotic painting of a woman; in the painting, she was sitting on the edge of a bed, her naked body barely covered by a bed sheet that she wore. The artwork caught the assassin’s attention. His eyes latched onto the painting and followed the work as they walked by it.
The clerk saw the assassin’s stare, “It is a very beautiful piece; it means much to the family, the woman in the painting is my sister.”
“Your sister?” The hardened killer wash shocked. “You let her show her naked body to the world?” The assassin was repulsed by this infidel, they have no shame. Slowly they walked, each step working to remind the assassin of his growing rage.
“Ah, I see that you are a critic, this is what makes art so important. Differences in interpretation should always be respected and discussed; this is where the passion for works of art derives and the female body is the most beautiful canvas imaginable. A woman is to be adored and worshipped, every part of her, from the curves of her breasts to the contours of her backside, top to bottom; it is from her that every man finds his origin, his anger, and his passion. A woman is the core of every thought both pure and evil that a man has. Do you not agree?”
No.
The assassin did not answer the young Italian’s question, only thinking his answer. The two men had come to a halt in front of a door on the third floor and the assassin instead asked, “Is this my room?”
“Yes, signore, here is your key. Inside you will find everything that you need. The hotel is nearly empty. The only other guests are on the first floor, you should not be disturbed. Please call me at the front desk should you desire anything more.”
The assassin snatched the key from the clerk and quickly went into his room slamming the door.
The clerk stood outside of the closed door for a moment thinking that there was something quite odd about this man.
Inside the small confines of the room, the assassin was choked with rage; he knew exactly what was triggering it. His next compulsion could not be controlled.
Quickly, he spun around and opened up the door; part of him had hoped that the clerk was still there, another part prayed that he wasn’t. Through the open door and underneath the exposed, darkened beams of the five-century old wooden ceiling, the two men stared into one another’s eyes. The startled eyes of the clerk shook; he sensed the implicit danger before him but was frozen and unable to move or mouth any words. The assassin’s two large hands shot out and grabbed the clerk by the throat, clamping it viciously to muffle any sounds.
Inside the room, the assassin kicked the door shut behind them, and then he squeezed the clerk’s throat harder and choked the young man until he slipped into unconsciousness. Not wanting the clerk dead – not yet, anyway – he let him go; the clerk’s body slumped to the floor. The assassin tore off the pillowcase from one of the small and ornately embroidered pillows that adorned the bed and shoved a corner of it into the clerk’s mouth. Scanning the room, he saw that the heavy curtains over the small window were bound by a braided cord. Grabbing the cord, he used it to bind the man’s hands. Eyeing the thick iron coat hook on the far wall, the assassin dragged the clerk toward it; the bound man was starting to writhe.
With little effort, the strong Persian lifted the clerk and hung him by his tied wrists from the hook. The man was starting to scream through the cloth stuffed into his mouth and thrashed desperately as he tried to free himself. Standing before him and saying nothing to the clerk, the assassin rose up his foot and forcefully kicked the front of the clerk’s knee with his heel, instantly shattering it inward. He stood back and watched the young man’s eyes roll deep into his sockets, the clerk was beginning to gag and his body was convulsing uncontrollably.
The assassin was pleased at the young man’s pain.
The clerk was choking on his own vomit, some of which had expelled forcefully through his nostrils; the bronzed skin of the young man’s face was turning into a shade of blue. The assassin wouldn’t let him yet die. Grabbing the cloth from his mouth, the assassin took the man by his hair and twisted his head to the side allowing the bile to clear from his throat.
The clerk had tears streaming down his cheeks and felt a fear never before imagined. Weakly he tried to speak. His voice, feeble from the crushing effects on his throat and raw from the acidic bile, did not sound like his own. He stammered in raspy, accented English at the assassin, “What, what do you want?”
The answer from the assassin ripped through the clerk in no way imaginable, the terror he felt nearly stopped his heart as he heard the assassin say, “I want to watch you die painfully and slowly.” The assassin shoved the gag back into the man’s mouth as the clerk tried to scream.
It took more than four hours for the clerk to die. When he was finished, the young man’s face bore no resemblance to the handsome olive-skinned man that earlier had shown the assassin to his room. Satiated and physically spent, the assassin slept deeply and with the calm of a child, just as the clerk had promised. He slept while waiting for the call from the Messenger. The dead clerk hung from the nearby hook like a proud hunter’s trophy would on a wall.
At the front desk of Hotel Bramante, the phone rang incessantly. Signor Giancarlo was worried about his nephew and had been calling him for hours; it was not like him to be absent. He hung up the phone and said, “Where the devil is Benito?”
He put on his coat and kissed his wife telling her he was going to check on the boy; it would be the last time that his wife would see him alive.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Situation Room
The White House
For the second time in one day, the Situation Room was filled with the highest ranking political, military, and intelligence officers of the nation. It was chaos.
Half of the attendees were on their cell phones shouting orders and demanding answers. The President’s secretary, an iron-mouthed, efficient and rough woman, stood before the most powerful men and women on the planet and slammed her thick and heavy day planner onto the table. Instantly, she had the attention of every person in the room.
“Gentlemen! Ladies! I need not remind you that the use of your cell pho
nes is absolutely prohibited in the Situation Room! Turn them off now and place them into the secured box!”
The President of the United States is the most powerful man on the planet. One could argue that his secretary was the most powerful woman. A parade of humbled, high-ranking government officials quickly and obediently walked forward and reluctantly freed themselves of their devices. In the corner sat a young naval lieutenant, and aide to Vice Admiral Gonzales, who was still aboard the USS Arizona; the lieutenant seemed unwilling to remove his cell phone from his ear.
Eyeing the insolent and presumptuous young man, the President’s secretary stomped loudly to him and snatched it from his hands.
“Hey! What the hell, lady?”
The secretary’s eyes turned to fire, “Don’t you hey me, young man, and don’t you ever disrespect me by using such abominable words! You are not excluded from an Executive Order, and my name is not “lady” it is Mrs. Childs, or ma’am. I suggest that you remember to use it properly the next time you address me!”
“But that was the Vice Admiral; he needs to know what’s going on.”
Adjusting her antiquated horn-rimmed glasses, the secretary coolly informed the young aide, “I already have an open and secure channel to the carrier. The Vice Admiral will be on conference momentarily.”
Leaning lower so that only the aide could hear her, she said, “Listen to me closely sailor, the next time you disobey and/or disrespect me I will make sure you are reassigned to the smallest frigate nearest the Arctic for a good portion of your career. I have served the office of the president since before you were born. Trust me, I will make it happen.”
Standing upright, Mrs. Childs walked to the secure box, and dropped in the shaken sailor’s phone. Locking it, she took her place near the President; most of the others in the room were doing their best to hide their smiles having learned an important lesson long ago: never cross the President’s secretary.