by Jones, Rick
From beneath the door leading to the bedrooms, light fanned out from the crack underneath the door.
“Basilio?”
The door opened slowly in invitation, as full light spilled into the corridor.
“Mama?”
“Basilio, che cosa l'inferno voi sta facendo?” Basilio, what the hell are you doing?
When she opened the door, she found her children sitting along the couch with Basilio, who embraced his younger sisters into a huddled mass, the children crying.
Standing beside them with the point of his assault weapon leveled was a man of dark complexion, wearing military fatigues and a red-and-white keffiyeh. Attached to the barrel of the assault weapon was a suppressor that was long and thin and polished to a mirror finish.
Sitting in a chair opposite the couch with one leg crossed over the other and his hands and fingers tented before him as he rested his elbows on the armrests, sat a man who appeared marginally older than her fifteen-year-old son, who looked upon her with the calm and casualness of an old friend. He was slight of build with an unkempt beard. His eyes, dark and humorless, studied her for a long moment before he finally directed his hand to a nearby chair.
“Please,” he said, “no harm will come to the children if you do as I say. This I promise you.” The man’s voice was gentle and held a honeylike quality to his tone. His Italian was flawless. “Please.”
Vittoria pulled the fabric of her gown across her cleavage and took the seat as required. Her chin began to quiver gelatinously as she eyed the intruder. “What do you want?” she asked.
The man did not answer. He simply appraised her while bouncing the fingertips of his tented hands together in contemplation.
“We have money. You can have it all. Just take it and leave us alone.”
“This isn’t about money,” he said. “This is about . . . ideology.”
She stared at him as if he was a living cryptogram, her head slowly and studiously tilting to one side.
“But I need your help,” he added. “I need something only you can give me.”
She pulled the fabric of her gown tighter.
The young man nodded to his counterpart, who lowered the point of his weapon and withdrew a knife from a sheath attached to his thigh. In a deliberate motion he brought the point of the blade up and rested it beneath the underside of her chin, the action drawing a crimson bead from her slightly parted flesh, which caused her children to cry out for clemency.
“What I want from you,” the man stated in perfect Italian, “is something quite simple.” He then pointed to a mini-cam recorder sitting on a tripod across the room. The indicator light was in the ‘on’ mode, the camera running. “What I want you to do,” he said, “is to look into that camera and scream.” He then leaned forward and spoke to her in a tone laced with menace. “I said . . . scream.”
And that’s exactly what she did.
CHAPTER THREE
Ten Miles South of the Arizona/Mexico Border
The Following Day
The Mexican version of a coyote was one who guided illegal aliens into US territory undetected. On this day, however, Juan Pallabos escorted an exclusive clientele who paid an admission price of $25,000—an incredibly sweet windfall—from three Arab men who wore nondescript clothing, such as non-patterned shirts and Dockers. None of them spoke or acknowledged the Mexican in any way, making Pallabos feel less significant in their presence. But for 25,000 American dollars, he could have cared less. In fact, he would have sealed his mouth shut with thread, if that’s what they wanted.
As the van moved unevenly along the desert terrain, its tires kicking rooster-tail plumes of dust in its wake, the Arabs sat quietly as the temperature soared to more than 110 degrees in the van’s interior.
Lying on the floor in the rear of the van sat an aluminum case. The shell was dull-coated silver and centered between the Arabs. If the coyote knew what he was transporting, he might have forsaken the five-figured amount. But a condition for receiving such a large amount is that he asks no questions. Therefore, not a single inquiry passed his lips.
With a great prudence Juan Pallabos maneuvered across the terrain careful not to damage an axle, and then came to an abrupt stop where the tires skidded a few feet in the soft desert sand. Through the dust-laden windshield he could see a battery of heat rising off the desert floor, and sage swaying softly with the course of a hot wind.
Saguaro and Joshua trees dotted the landscape that was colored with the reddish hues of sandstone, rather than the conventional yellow-brown of desert sand. In the distance the horizon appeared uneven in pointed caps and rises, giving it a saw-tooth appearance, which would serve as insurmountable obstacles for Pallabos’s van.
“We can go no further,” said the coyote, stepping out of the vehicle. He walked toward the horizon, appraised it, and then he removed his hat and passed a handkerchief across his brow. “The land is too uneven. My vehicle can go no further.”
The Arabs exited the van. Their shirts were tacky with sweat and their flesh slick with sheen. Carefully, two of the Arabs handled the aluminum case, one on each end, and placed it on the desert floor while the third Arab took residence next to Pallabos.
“Twelve kilometers straight ahead,” said Pallabos, pointing. “Once you get over the hills, then you will be all right. The American border is too large for the patrols to watch and maintain consistently. You should have no trouble getting across. But stay away from cartel tunnels. Drug lords no like others to use. But crossing over is very easy. And I suggest that you wait until the sun goes down, si?”
“Then drive us as far as you can.”
“No-no. No can do from here. Land is too much—how you say, difficult to cover. Must have way back, si?”
The Arab didn’t look at Pallabos, his eyes straight ahead. “We could have paid someone else much less to take us further.”
“No-no, Señor. Juan Pallabos is the best. Everybody say so. Not possible.”
The Arab mopped his brow with the back of his hand. The desert heat was much drier in his homeland, which was far more preferable than the sapping white sun that hung stingingly over his head at the moment. “Do you want more money? Is that why you stopped?” The Arab’s tone was flat, smooth, even.
“No-no, Señor. Juan Pallabos is an honest man. Van get damaged if go any further. Juan tells truth. Juan knows.”
“Then how do you expect us to travel twelve kilometers in this heat?”
Pallabos smiled, intuiting the question. “Huh, Juan brought plenty of water. Plenty of water.” He returned to the van and opened the front passenger door. Lying on the floor were six canteens filled with water. “Plenty of water, si? At night it will only take three hours to cross into United States. Three. Very easy. Juan Pallabos send many across the border. Juan Pallabos the best.”
The Arab took a long pull of air through his nostrils and released it in an equally long sigh. “Then I guess we no longer need your services.”
“Si, Juan provide. Juan the best, si?”
“Unfortunately for you, Mr. Pallabos, we cannot leave any witnesses behind. I’m sure you understand.”
Pallabos’s face dropped, his features taking on the sudden looseness of a rubber mask.
Reaching behind him, the Arab withdrew a Sig. with an attached suppressor from the waistband of his Dockers and fired the weapon three times in rapid succession, dropping Pallabos to the desert floor.
Returning the weapon, the Arab, who was tall and lean and walked with a mild limp that served as a vestige after combating American troops in Iraq, moved toward the aluminum case and placed his palms flat against the container. Even under the hot desert sun the shell was cool to the touch. Undoing the clasps, the Arab lifted the lid.
Everything was in its place beneath the Plexiglas shield, the circuitry secured, the spheres undamaged, which the Arab worried about over the course of the rough terrain. The Russians had manufactured well.
After closing the lid and clamping it shu
t, the Arab stood and surveyed the distance toward the American border. “We will take the van as far as we can, and then dump it.”
With a sweeping gesture of his hand, his comrades lifted the aluminum case and returned it to the van.
Less than five minutes later they began to traverse the difficult terrain in the van. And less than half mile from their launch point the vehicle became mired in sand, the van going nowhere.
Juan Pallabos was right after all.
#
On the western approach to the American/Mexican border from the Baja, California route, a separate team of three Middle Easterners crossed over into American territory undetected. The aluminum case they carried was safe and secure, the spheres inside undamaged. And in the end no one could believe how simple it was to maneuver over to the other side. There was not a single border agent, helicopter or roving patrol vehicle in sight. There were no dogs or fences or obstacles to act as a deterrent. Getting the aluminum case and its cargo into the United States proved to be less of an adversity than initially planned for; there was absolutely no challenge from the opposition, absolutely no one to stop them.
It was that simple.
#
Team Three also managed to slip undetected across the American border from the New Mexico point, a part of the 2,000 mile stretch with Mexico that was habitually thin when trying to keep a vigilant eye out for those who cross over illegally. Now with the second device easily into New Mexico, the team had received word that Team Two had crossed over from the Baja route unchallenged.
All that was left to do was to rendezvous with Team One, which had yet to be heard from on the Arizona front.
CHAPTER FOUR
Los Angeles, California
Early Evening
The Papal Symposiums began in Washington D.C. a day after Pope Pius XIII arrival at Dulles, and ended up at the Rose Bowl in California twelve days later, the circuit sometimes grueling and contentious, the topics discussed before the masses numbering into the millions about the need for Christian conservatism over the desire of Christian reform.
For years congregates had been abandoning the traditional, if not antiquated, mores of the Roman Catholic Church with growing liberalism and a call for change. Pius, however, served to unite his dwindling flock by rekindling the spark of religious hope, sermonizing that certain liberties can only summon the beginning of the end, if traditions of old were not maintained with discipline. The rebuttal, of course, was the Medias stance regarding the Vatican’s unwillingness to conform to the wishes of its Catholic citizenry, citing there could be ‘no progress without evolution. The Church, on the other hand, judiciously retorted with an aphorism stating that ‘the price of progress is destruction.’
Fighting an undeclared war to resurrect a waning faith by marshalling a new crusade, Pope Pius realized that the Church had survived numerous insurrections in the past and would continue to do so in the future. How to promote unity, however, had proven to be a huge undertaking which had sapped the old man to a state of near exhaustion. Although he found his inner strength on several occasions, he realized that it, too, was in decline and found it far more difficult to summon as the days wore on.
Releasing an exhaustive breath, the pontiff crossed the Berber carpeted floor of his hotel suite and poised himself before a chair made of soft leather and let his knees buckle, which allowed him to fall back with ease into the comfort of its cushion. At the moment the man was feeling every bit of his seventy-two years of age. Nevertheless, a smile formed at the corner of his lips.
There had been 90,000 people at the Rose Bowl—90,000 souls seeking either salvation, redemption, or merely to glimpse upon a living icon having no clear objective other than to view the pontiff as a novelty. If he had reached some of them, no matter how small in numbers or how little they had taken the Lord into their heart, then he had succeeded.
For a long moment he gazed through the sliding glass doors that overlooked the west and soaked in the view, watching the delicate shades of light combine subtly into a rainbow swirl of colors against the skyline. In time, as the sky became a blanket of darkness, the City of Angels became a dazzling display of lights reminiscent of a cache of diamonds spread over black velvet.
Closing his eyes, the pontiff realized that sleep would come early. On most evenings he would read from the Bible and gaze through its passages. But tonight he was too tired to flip back the cover of the leather-bound volume. However, in recompense, and in an attitude of prayer, Pope Pius placed his hands together and worshiped his Lord, thanking Him for raising him from the ranks of obscurity to that of prominence.
He had come from a family of eleven, all poor, some sickly, but none without faith or hope. Never in his life had he witnessed war or famine or the plagues of man by living in a small village sixty kilometers west of Florence. Nor did he have an epiphany to follow the Lord’s path. Amerigo was simply enamored as a boy who loved God and everything He stood for: The Good, the Caring, and the ability to hold dominion over others, and to lead them toward the world of Light and Loving Spirits.
He also dreamed of sermonizing and of passing The Word.
But his father would have none of it and obligated his son to work the fields of the homestead alongside his brothers knowing the true measurement of a man was calculated by the crops he yielded rather than the knowledge of academia, which in this remote village took a man nowhere.
So having been taught by his mother at home, having read and memorized the passages of the Bible, having learned the basics in rudimentary math tilling the fields with his siblings for nearly a decade, Amerigo Giovanni Anzalone had become a learned young man with calloused hands from driving the yolk, and came to realize that tilling the soils was not his calling in life.
Every Sunday he went to church with his mother and siblings. And for every day thereafter, as he worked the soil beneath a relentless sun, he dreamed of wearing the vestments of a priest and giving sermon. What Amerigo wanted, what he needed, was to be empowered by the Church to give direction.
Upon his eighteenth birthday, and against his father’s wishes—but with the aid of the village priest, which his father was unwilling to contest—Amerigo gave up the yoke and headed for Divinity School in Florence, his first stepping stone toward Rome.
In the years to follow, Amerigo was recognized as a cardinal and became a respected member within the Curia, which ultimately led the College of Cardinals, who chose him as the successor to John Paul the Second. Upon his acceptance, Amerigo took the name of Pope Pius the XIII.
And like his predecessor, Amerigo would offer a hand to every race and religion, leaving nobody out and nobody alone. He would embrace the world with love and tolerance, beginning with the European nations, and then following up with added appearances in South America and Mexico before concluding his trip in the United States.
Removing his glasses and placing them on the armrest, the pope ran a hand along a face that had grown into tired folds of flesh, and then proceeded to caress away the burning itch from eyes that were once strikingly blue, but had grayed during his tenure as pope. The intelligence behind them, however, remained firmly intact, and the color grayness of steel, a prominent indicator of his mettle.
With a prayer issuing softly from between his lips, as his words began to trail, Pope Pius fell asleep with his hands slowly drifting apart, and then falling idly to his sides.
#
The images came to him every night.
Behind the dusty scrim wall of an oppressive sand storm figures followed in his wake. In a world that was the color of desert sand with sand clouds blotting out the sun, the man was constantly mired in a world that moved with the slowness of a bad dream. Pressing forward against the buffeting winds with the tail of his tattered cloak flapping behind him like a banner in a strong wind, and with his face partially covered with a smudged cloth bearing the telltale signs of a lifelong journey, the man moved toward an unknown horizon.
And the dead f
ollowed him.
Behind the desert veil followed two masses, their features undulating shadows breaking apart then coalescing, but never uniform as their mournful whispers blended with the soughing of the desert wind.
And then the man closed his eyes as he stood on top of a large dune, the granules of sand rolling like waves across the desert terrain, the tail of his cloak waving steadily behind him. Here he was, the dictator over a kingdom in which no one else cared to rule.
So he moved on, marching through this quagmire looking for a savior in a distant land that might not be.
And the shadows followed, the two shepherd boys he killed a lifetime ago.
Their voices were soft and sweet, their melodic tones almost lost within the course of the wind. Yet the message was always clear: “No matter how far you try to run, Hell will always follow.”
At this juncture Kimball Hayden woke with a sharp pain in his head akin to a mule kick to the temple. By Freudian standards everything playing in his mind was easy to determine, but difficult to let go.
Why? The answer was simple: Because he had set his path long ago.
Several years ago he was team leader of the Force Elite, a group of special commandos who did Black Ops known only by the president of the United States and the reigning members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Since targeted assassinations had been banned by the Ford administration in ‘76, secret meetings were always the norm in the Situation Room in which the ban went virtually unnoticed by future presidents and the JCS.
By military design he was a Black-Op commando primed to work on foreign soils as an assassin. And in 1990 he was assigned to kill three key members of Saddam Hussein’s Cabinet who were responsible for brokering deals with Russian dissidents for high-grade plutonium. Not only was the plutonium not delivered, but the brokers were found shot to death in Chelyabinsk, Russia, by a Rav-.22LRHA, Mossad’s weapon of choice for assassinations. This weapon was also the red herring that ultimately led to the finger pointing at Israel.