The Hand of Christ

by Joseph Nagle

  Yousef let out a painful laugh and shook his head at Michael.

  “And the most unbelievable part of all of this is that the world has been lied to by the Church for two-thousand years! The Church has forced men to fight and die under every religious banner conceivable, but not for the son of God, as they were told; He didn’t even die for their sins! They died only to satisfy the Church’s insatiable thirst for wealth and their relentless desire for power! The Church, knowingly and purposely, perpetuated the lie. The hypocrisy is disgusting! I am only doing what is necessary!”

  “One of those people is my wife! Sonia is your friend! What about Alaina? Is she to die for your cause too? Where does it stop, where do you draw a line?”

  For a slight moment, Yousef’s eyes reflected small signs of sympathy.

  As a trained interrogator, Michael saw this. This was his chance.

  “Look at me God damn it!”

  Michael hovered over Yousef and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

  “How are you any different than the rest of us? You act as if you are righting some two-thousand year-old wrong! You pretend that the life of Christ is your motive, but you are just full of shit! You could care less about Christ or the Church. Your motive is greed! Your motive is power! You tried to take over The Order, but look at you now! You are half-dead and your mission is a failure! Do millions of people have to die for your failure?

  A thick vein angrily pulsated down Michael’s forehead. His face was inches from Yousef’s.

  “So, I ask you once more, Yousef, how are you any fucking different than the rest of us?”

  Yousef didn’t answer.

  “Look around you Yousef! The Director is dead, the Monsignor is dead, your assassin is dead, the Pope still lives, and I have no fucking idea who the hell’s body that is burning in the fireplace! But he’s dead, too! For Christ’s sake, Yousef, they cut off your fucking hand! You were never going to succeed with your plans,” Michael pointed at the still unconscious Primitus. “And he made sure of it!”

  Michael used an old interrogation tactic called “The Futility Approach.” Its design was to make one believe that all hope is lost and Michael’s use of it would need to be perfect.

  Michael yanked Yousef from the chair, the two men were face-to-face, “If the rest of the world is nothing but the play-pieces of The Order, how are you any more different than the next man? How are you any more than just a pawn? Yousef, you’ve been fucking used; the Primitus strung you along just to get you and the Director here! Now, answer my question you son of a bitch before I take off your other hand! How are you any different than the rest of us?”

  Yousef raised his head. He carried the face of a dejected man. He gazed to the Primitus who was lying unconscious on the floor. He looked at his severed hand that still sat on the table. He looked at the dead bodies of Geoffrey and the Director.

  Feebly he said, “Michael, what have I done?”

  Michael shook Yousef, “If you ever cared for me, for Sonia or Alaina, then there is still time to stop the missiles! Give me the second code! Help me put an end to this!”

  Yousef opened his mouth as if to speak, but before he could, CPL York nearly jumped and shouted, “Professor! Look out behind you!”

  It was too late, Michael couldn’t react and Yousef couldn’t speak. Four men had appeared from out of nowhere. Their thermal images hadn’t entered the Corporal’s field of view until the moment they had stormed into the room.

  Michael had no time to react. A pistol dug deep into the back of his head. A large olive toned hand reached around and removed the XM8 from his grasp. Two other men had their weapons pointed at Yousef. Michael let Yousef go. The fourth, a very well-dressed man, walked slowly around the leather chair. He stared, first, at Michael, and then, at Yousef. He wasn’t armed.

  Michael saw Yousef tremble with recognition.

  The well-dressed man was Lebanese. He was of average height and weight but carried himself with the authority of a much larger man. He wore a white Borsalino fedora, and the hat’s brim arched deeply over his eyes. Thick curly black hair poked from underneath the sides of the fedora. Michael saw small red bumps on his cheeks. His face had been recently shaved. His suit was black with thin white pinstripes and impeccably tailored. The Lebanese man removed the fedora with his left hand and looked at Michael.

  Michael squinted at the man. It took less than a few seconds for Michael to recognize him.

  Michael growled in a low voice, “Nissam Hashrallah! You are the leader of Hezbollah!”

  The President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and every member of the CORe center were stunned by those words.

  The leader of Hezbollah said, “It would seem that you know who I am, Dr. Sterling. I suppose, in this case, introductions are not necessary.”

  He knows who I am, too!

  The leader of Hezbollah motioned to the two men next to Yousef and barked in Lebanese, “Pick him up!”

  The two men roughly picked up Yousef by both of his arms and had him on his feet. Yousef could hardly stand; his stump loudly smacked against the back of the chair and caused him to wince from the pain.

  The well-dressed leader of Hezbollah smiled slightly and walked to Yousef. Tenderly he grabbed hold of Yousef’s arm and raised it in front of him. He inspected the burnt stump as if he were concerned, but then squeezed it so hard that it started to bleed. Yousef tried to scream but the pain was too great. His knees buckled, but the men that held him wouldn’t let him fall.

  “Get him out of here!” the leader of Hezbollah commanded.

  The two men obeyed their leader’s command and drug Yousef toward the door.

  “Wait! Where are you taking him, what are you going to do?”

  “Dr. Sterling,” said the leader of Hezbollah, “Mr. Aramasu has infiltrated my organization and killed one of my Generals and many good and innocent soldiers. He is responsible for the death of the Ayatollah and the attack on Umayyad. He has betrayed Iran and Islam. We will deal with him according to our laws.”

  “But how did you know to come here?”

  The leader of Hezbollah put his hat back on, adjusted it, and thought about Michael’s question for a moment. He raised his eyes to Michael and then pointed to the Primitus, “You can thank him.”

  Yousef heard this and instantly knew that Michael was right, the leader of The Order had known about his plans all along and had set him up!

  Yousef shouted weakly, “Michael!”

  Michael looked at his one-time friend but said nothing.

  Yousef knew his fate, and so did Michael. Hezbollah would not be kind in their punishment of him. His voice trembled in a way that only a condemned man’s would, “You were right, Michael, I can not let this happen. Your memory is lucid. There is only one way to signal distress. Please tell my wife, tell Sonia that I am sorry.”

  The leader of Hezbollah motioned to the two men. They yanked Yousef through the door. The third man removed the pistol from the back of Michael’s head and followed them.

  “I wish you luck, Dr. Sterling,” said the leader of Hezbollah. He touched the brim of his hat as a way to say good-by, and then he left.

  Quietly, Michael said, “What the fuck just happened?”

  “That’s what we would like to know.” The President’s voice sounded as confused as Michael’s thoughts.

  Michael couldn’t speak. He focused on Yousef’s final words to him. Slowly, a smile crept across his face.

  “Mr. President, I have the second code!”

  The President looked over at General Diedrick; both were transfixed on what just transpired in Rome.

  Michael’s simple statement resonated and the President spat out, “What? How?”

  Michael sat in front of the laptop and said, “Vertices of palindromes!”

  “Vertices of what?” replied the President.

  Michael didn’t respond to the President’s question. He typed in 111–000–111 and the system responded with the word “CODE A
CCEPTED.”

  “I am in!” Michael shouted emphatically.

  The President looked at General Diedrick and asked, “What the hell are vertices of palindromes?”

  The General shrugged as if to say, how the hell am I supposed to know?

  “S-O-S,” Michael said quietly.

  “That’s the code?”

  “Yes, Mr. President, the code is S-O-S, but not the letters. The code is a number that equates to S-O-S.”

  “Vertices of Palindrome?” the President asked.

  “Yes, Mr. President, sort of,” replied Michael.

  The laptop’s screen flashed. A map of the world appeared. Curved lines striated the map and outlined the orbital path of the satellite that controlled the missiles. Overhead, in High Earth Orbit (HEO) over the Atlantic, a US made satellite readied itself to receive its next commands and turned toward the missiles.

  “But how did you know?” General Diedrick asked.

  Michael typed instructions into the computer, and, at the same time, replied to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “Sir, Yousef said that my ‘memory is lucid,’ and that ‘there is only one way to signal distress.’ You heard him yourself, sir.”

  In HEO, the satellite’s receptor dish unfolded like the petals of a flower. It took less than ten seconds for the dish to be fully opened. The satellite received Michael’s commands and then sent them to the missiles.

  “But I don’t understand,” the President said. “The distress signal is letters, how did you know what numbers to use?”

  Michael was focused on the missiles and entered in new flight coordinates. As he did, he answered the President, “Sir, the code comes from Kryptos. It is a piece of artwork at Langley.”

  Kryptos? “Yes, I am aware of it. I have seen it many times,” said the President.

  “Then you know that Kryptos has four panels, three of them have had their codes broken, but the fourth panel has an unbreakable code.”

  “Dr. Sterling, are you telling me you just broke that code, the one that no analyst has been able to break for over a decade?”

  “No, sir, the codes on Kryptos were already broken. Like I said, Kryptos has four panels; three of those panels have codes that were broken with different ciphers by a couple of analysts. One of the deciphered panels contained a code that gives the coordinates to a location that is near the sculpture. I thought that those coordinates were the original code to the guidance system.”

  “But they weren’t, were they Dr. Sterling? The code was on the fourth panel?”

  “No, Mr. President, I wasn’t wrong, and no, the code for the guidance system isn’t on the last panel. One half of the original code to the guidance system was the coordinates that I mentioned. Director Willis had them in his control, that’s why he was here, but he wouldn’t give them to Yousef.”

  “And that’s why you were drug into this?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Yousef knew that I would be able to figure out the code.”

  “Then why isn’t it working, Dr. Sterling?”

  “When the Primitus put the original codes for the guidance system into the computer, he changed the second one.”

  “To S-O-S?” said the President.

  “Yes, sir; he changed the code to the numerical equivalent of S-O-S. Everyone thinks that the fourth panel on Kryptos is a code and that no one has yet to break it. But the fourth panel was just a decoy, it’s not a cipher for the real code, the real code is somewhere else at Langley. The maker of Kryptos made another sculpture near the outcroppings that are at the front of CIA’s entrance. In the sculpture, he used Morse code. That’s what Yousef was referring to when he said that my ‘memory is lucid.’ This phrase is written in Morse code on the other sculpture!”

  “And the distress signal? Is that there, too?”

  “Yes, Mr. President, it is. The code is 111 – 000 – 111; the numbers represent the dots and dashes for S-O-S.”

  “Vertices of Palindromes?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  The laptop in front of Michael flashed the flight paths of the twelve nuclear missiles. They had crossed over the north western corner of Europe and were headed across the Atlantic on a direct path to the United States. They were getting close to the country’s eastern border. Michael entered the last set of commands and the missiles lost altitude.

  Michael yelled out, “I have changed the missiles’ course of direction! I am sending them to the bottom of the Atlantic!”

  At the CORe center, CPL York shouted, “He’s doing it! Look! The missiles are headed toward the ocean!”

  In the Oval Office, the President stood from the chair behind the Resolute and walked to where the General stood.

  The General spoke, “Dr. Sterling, confirm that you have control of those missiles.”

  “Shit!” Michael shouted.

  “What is it, Dr. Sterling?”

  Michael replied, “Sir, I have control of all them except for one! It won’t accept the command! There must be a malfunction with its guidance system!”

  One by one, eleven missiles fell harmlessly into the ocean, but the twelfth nuclear tipped missile continued on its path toward the US.

  “Sir,” CPL York interrupted, “all but one of the missiles has hit the Atlantic. The remaining missile continues on its path, and is bearing is east. Its altitude is one-zero-zero thousand feet and starting to descend!”

  The General shouted, “CPT Scott, Initiate SIOP ADA Protocols! Scramble the fighters from the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base. Use the Patriot Brigade at Fort Hood! Intercept that missile and shoot it out of the fucking sky!”

  Scott had already picked up a secure phone line and shouted back. “Yes, sir, I am on the com now!”

  The General’s orders shot out like a machine. He had just ordered CPT Scott to initiate the pre-designed protocols to defend the United States from the attack by a nuclear missile.

  It was an impossible task; both the Captain and the General knew it. It was highly improbable that the missile could be destroyed in the sky.

  At Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, the twelve men of the 7th Fighter Squadron: four Captains, six Majors, one Lt. Colonel, and the Squadron’s Commander, Colonel Wallace T. Jones, ran to their fourth generation stealth fighters. Moments ago, the officers of the “Screamin’ Demons” had been engaged in a game of poker when the alarm rang.

  Each fighter pilot was met at his F-22 Raptor by an Airman. The Airman would help each pilot with his gear. One by one, each pilot scrambled sixteen feet up a ladder and into the “all-glass” – but really made of two 3/8 inch sheets of fusion bonded polycarbonate – cockpit. It was the first of its kind and with the push of a button the canopy came down, slid forward, and was locked into place by pins.

  Colonel Wallace T. Jones snapped shut the MBU-22/P face mask and said into the helmet mounted radio system, “Ready, Demons?”

  Almost in unison, each pilot of the squadron replied, “Demons, ready!”

  “Battery-switch to on!” commanded the Colonel.

  One by one, each pilot replied, “Battery-switch on.”

  “Auxiliary-power to start!”

  All of the pilots complied.

  “Both throttles in idle!”

  The three-step start sequence occurred in seconds. The two engines of each Raptor roared to life. The first engine to fire was the one on the right-side of the stealth fighter, and then followed by the one on the left-side. Next, the avionics and the sub-systems activated. Quickly, each pilot performed the necessary pre-flight checks.

  Once safely inside, strapped in, and the engines on, the pilots received their orders. The Raptors were lined up in two columns of six, the last two Raptors in the squadron’s columns belonged to the two youngest pilots. The two young Captains quickly read their orders and then looked at one another through their cockpit canopies. Although they could not see each other through their darkened visors, both men thought the same two things:

  1. The mi
ssion was impossible.

  And,

  2. Holy shit!

  Under the belly and beneath the wings of the twelve F-22’s fighters, two-dozen Airmen had already, and frantically, run through their required protocols. Cables had been unplugged, blocks of wood from behind and in front of the fighters’ tires removed, and the signal for take-off was given.

  The entire fire-up procedure had taken only thirty seconds. Two at a time, the jets screamed down the runway under the power of the two Pratt & Whitney F119 Turbofans. The glow of their afterburners lit up the sky. The jets climbed forcibly into the sky and broke through the clouds and quickly reached fifty-thousand feet. The twelve F-22 Raptors settled in at Mach 2.25 and were on a direct path toward the remaining nuclear missile.

  Elsewhere, at Fort Hood, Texas, four line batteries that belonged to the 69th ADA Brigade (Air Defense Artillery) for the Patriot Missile sat strategically placed throughout the military reservation. The men that operated the anti-ballistic missile platforms were ready when they received their orders. Every surface to air anti-ballistic missile battery in the United States was on alert and had been readied to respond should the orders come. They now had their orders.

  When the order arrived, the well-trained soldiers reacted fast. Already elevated to their maximum height of one hundred feet and eleven inches, three 4kW OE-349 Antennae Mast Groups were already sending “shots” throughout the secure Patriot Data Information Link from one battery to the other.

  A Control Officer (TCO) in the AN/MSQ-104 Engagement Control Station (ECS) already had the nuclear missile on radar and reviewed its speed, altitude, and trajectory. Speaking to the TCO’s of each ECS, the control officer announced, “I’ve got it on radar!” He then turned to the TCA at his right and commanded, “Sergeant, switch mode from standby to operate!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The TCA punched a few buttons. The Patriot Missile system switched modes and automatically calculated which battery would have the highest probability to shoot the incoming nuclear missile out of the sky.