Shepherd One (Vatican Knights)

by Jones, Rick

  There was no doubt in his mind as to what they were. No doubt at all.

  His agenda just got harder.

  #

  Hakam and three of his assassins stood at the end of the aisle staring at the vacant seat that once held Kimball Hayden. The ties were still there, a bloodied one hanging on the armrest, the other placed dead center of the seat in mockery.

  “You know I’m a better soldier than that,” informed the assassin responsible for watching Hayden. “I simply responded to what was happening up front. I thought the priest was tied down tight.”

  Hakam placed a hand on the assassin’s shoulder. “Where can he go?” he asked. “The man is on a plane more than thirty thousand feet in the air.”

  The assassin’s eyes fell ashamedly to the floor, nonetheless.

  In turn, Hakam squeezed the man’s shoulder reassuringly. “If you want to make amends, Aziz, then you shall have that right.”

  The assassin projected his chin out aggressively. “My failure to you is a failure to Allah.”

  “You failed no one, my friend. Your actions on the battlefield have more than proven your worth in the eyes of Allah.” Hakam moved to the kitchen area and looked through the glass pane of the elevator chute. From his vantage point he could see the top of the elevator one level below. “He’s in the baggage area,” he said. “And no doubt he’s locked the elevator down.”

  “There’s another way,” said Aziz. “In the fore section next to the cockpit is a trapdoor leading to all sublevels.”

  Hakam nodded. “No firearms,” he said. “This particular man scares me.” He moved back to the kitchen area with his hands clasped behind the small of his back, his mind working. “He’s a fighter,” he added. “And the last thing I need is for someone like him to get a hold of a firearm and end this mission before it has a chance to get started.”

  “My aim is true. I will not miss.”

  “My point, Aziz, is that the priests up here are lambs too frightened to fight back when it comes to their own slaughter. I never anticipated one who would fight back. So, for this man, I think we shall exercise caution, yes?” Hakam opened a drawer filled with knives that were long, sharp and keen. Butcher’s knives set aside to cut the baked meats normally served on trans-Atlantic flights. “Take two men and go below,” he ordered. “And leave your firearms here—give him no chance to acquire a weapon so he can try to level the playing field.”

  Aziz appeared disappointed. “You don’t trust me, do you? You think a priest who prays to a false God can defeat a soldier of Allah?”

  Hakam nodded. “A soldier of Allah you are, my friend, and a very good one. But this man is no priest.” He reached into the drawer, pulled out a knife, and handed it to the assassin. “Bring me his head to be placed before the pope.”

  Aziz took the weapon and held it firmly in his grasp.

  Hakam then produced two more knives for the soldiers who would be accompanying him to the lower level, and laid them on the countertop. Although the color of the blades were as dull as aluminum casting, their edges held a razor-like sharpness to them. “Allahu Akbar,” he said.

  Aziz thrust the knife he was holding downward, the pointed end planting deep into the countertop in a display of its effectiveness. “Allahu Akbar.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Chateau Grand Hotel

  Los Angeles

  Criminal Investigators Louis Bardaggio and Chris Cardasian stood outside of room 616 while the crime scene analysts continued with their work inside. However, the full complement of analysts was now beginning to spread thin, since further investigation revealed an additional five bodies. All part of the papal flight crew.

  “Mr. Morgenessi,” said Bardaggio, looking at his notepad, “as much as we have on him, is a father of three with no questionable background, resides in Rome, and has been the co-pilot of Shepherd One for almost three years.”

  Cardasian kept a watchful eye on the analysts through the open door. “Shepherd One?”

  “It’s the papal plane,” he answered. He then gestured by pointing and jabbing his thumb ceilingward, indicating the upper levels. “The other five bodies are confirmed members of the papal flight crew . . . and all of them garroted in their sleep. The only one missing from the detail is the pilot.” He referred to his notes. “Captain Enzio Pastore, a highly decorated pilot of the Aeronautica Milatare and lead pilot for Shepherd One.”

  Cardasian appeared nonplussed before examining his watch, his face screwing mildly. When he spoke, he never looked away from his watch. “Didn’t the pope’s plane take off about thirty minutes ago?”

  Bardaggio nodded like a bobble-head doll. “It did, and with a full flight crew that was checked in by TSA. So the question is this: If the real papal flight crew is here, then who’s up there?” Once again he jabbed his thumb ceilingward.

  Cardasian raked a hand through his fading crop of thinning hair. “TSA doesn’t know who they checked in?”

  “I asked LAX that,” he said. “And they told me since Shepherd One is not considered a commercial flight or a flight of hostile intent, it is not subjected to the same search protocols as commercial liners. It is, after all, the papal plane.”

  “So they just let an undocumented crew walk on board?”

  “According to TSA management they did confirm that Captain Pastore submitted the tags of his crew, which were logged. That information is then given to the tower, who then acknowledges a full detail, and gauges the length and time to close down airspace for all flights until Shepherd One took off. Their job is to log in the names of the flight crew and nothing more. It’s all about time restraint and scheduling. It wasn’t about safety.”

  “So Pastore could have given the TSA officers the ID tags of a dead crew, without them even acknowledging or matching the tags with the faces, and in goes whomever?”

  More bobble head nodding. “Yup. And the officers who logged the tags said Pastore looked fine.”

  “Of course he looked fine. He’s either under duress or he’s in on it.”

  Cardasian stepped away from the open door, thinking. The smell of blood and copper was beginning to permeate the hallway they were standing in. “I’ll contact the FBI and Homeland Security,” he said. “It’s a possibility that Shepherd One may have been commandeered by a crew with hostile intent.”

  “It kind of looks that way, doesn’t it? It really does.”

  It was Cardasian’s turn with the bobble-head weave. “And what better way to mask hostile intention by flying the pope’s transport?”

  #

  The greatest pain Basilio Pastore suffered was when he sprained his knee playing soccer. The split lip was a close second. There was an actual divide on his lower lip, the flesh pared back to reveal a V. Every time he took a breath it was like a blast of cold air passing over an exposed nerve, only worse, the pain sometimes launching a cry from his throat and tears from his eyes.

  After the large man ripped the shirt off Basilio’s back he made him wipe his lip dry, the fabric soaking up as much blood as possible before the shirt was proffered to his mother. When the shirt became saturated with the stains of his blood his wound continued to hemorrhage, the divided flesh needing surgical mending. And in all this time the assassin looked down on him with a wry grin, nodding—his actions a testament of his brutal nature with the promise of more to come.

  As soon as the large man was satisfied, he grabbed Basilio’s shirt in one hand and a hank of the boy’s hair in the other, pulling Basilio to his feet with effortless ease, and directed him down a semi-dark, dank corridor that smelled with the rancidness of raw sewage. “What?” said the large man as he half carried, half dragged Basilio along the corridor floor. “Did you not like your accommodations of the holding pen? Perhaps the Black Box will be more to your liking.”

  Far from his family and positioned on the other side of the warehouse was a steel booth marginally larger than a gun safe. The interior was small and cramped, the metal compartment a
standing sarcophagus that disallowed the possibility of lying down. To Basilio it was a premature burial chamber.

  The large man pulled the door wide and shoved Basilio inside. And Basilio did not fight back or resist, knowing the man was too big, too powerful, and any sort of defiance on his part would bring nothing less than additional pain.

  “Perhaps this is more to your liking,” said the man with the simian brow. The flash of his smile showed the fine rows of his teeth and the nature of his hostile glee. “Perhaps you will die in here, yes? Or perhaps I will forget about you. But I am not a man without compassion, either.” The terrorist stood back and appraised a shirtless Basilio, his smile now gone. “You will not die today,” he told him. “But tomorrow is another day.” The man slammed the door shut and something moved in place, a locking mechanism of some type. Then through the door, the terrorist’s voice muted beyond the steel walls, avowed something in Arabic before departing, leaving behind a disconcerting quiet.

  In time Basilio ran the flats of his palms along the interior of the chamber walls, each rotation of his hands trying to get a feel of his surroundings in order to draw a mental image from his settings. What he discovered was that the Black Box was exactly that, a black box. Holes had been drilled into the top to allow the seepage of air and pencil-thin shafts of light. When he tried to bend into a sitting position, he found it impossible. With every passing moment the air become stagnant and hot, the heat heavy. Above him, thin shafts of light began to fade as the sun began to set.

  Leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the steel wall, there was no doubt that he would die here, in this chamber, his body to become a mummified husk.

  He had no doubt at all.

  Basilio began to weep.

  #

  Hakam, in his usual calm demeanor, waited patiently. After allowing Aziz and two others to go below through the access trapdoor, he posted a fourth soldier topside to maintain watch over the entry point to ensure that only Aziz and his team would emerge, once they garnered the prize of the valet’s head.

  Grabbing the clipboard containing the passenger list, Hakam examined it carefully and double checked it. Listed were Pope Pius and the twelve bishops of the Holy See.

  The roster, however, was incomplete.

  Taking the clipboard, Hakam went to the main flight cabin where the passengers were congregated. The bishops were basically nondescript, mostly in their sixties, gray-haired, all harboring the shared look of dread and fear, all of them wearing black attire and Roman collar. The pope, on the other hand, remained calm and reserved, obviously putting his faith in God, and found comfort by doing so.

  Hakam stood before him and held up the clipboard, saying nothing.

  “Are you trying to make a point of some kind?” asked the pope.

  Hakam sighed and lowered the register. “This is the passenger list,” he said, then tossed the clipboard onto a neighboring seat. “It lists nineteen people.”

  Pope Pius said nothing.

  “It lists the twelve bishops, the six-member flight crew, and yourself.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Why does it not contain the name of your personal valet? I find that quite interesting.”

  Pius shrugged. “I did not create the list.”

  Hakam was a man of amazing reserve, but he was beginning to feel the burgeoning sense of his impatience rising to the surface. “Why . . . does it not . . . contain … the name . . . of your valet?”

  “What do you want from me? I have already given you my answer.”

  “Would you give me a different answer if I had my friend with the garrote choose one of your bishops to display his skills, in order to illicit a proper response from you?”

  Pope Pius took on more of an imploring appeal when he spoke. “What I have told you is the truth.”

  Hakam took a seat on a nearby armrest and smiled gingerly. “I believe you,” he said. “But I want to know who he is—this man of mystery.”

  “He is my valet,” he said simply.

  Hakam maintained the smile. “Now you’re lying to me.” And then he stood. “Twelve bishops will soon become eleven if you don’t start telling me the truth. We both know that he is no priest. His name does not register on the list, which is required by law—even if it is the pope’s transport . . . And oddly enough, he wears military issue.”

  “What I say to you is true. He has been my personal valet throughout the symposiums.”

  “He’s definitely not Swiss Guard,” said Hakam, “since he’s American. Only the Swiss can be a part of that force. And the insignia on his pocket—he’s the only one on board who wears it; the symbol of the shield with the silver cross and lions.”

  Pope Pius turned away, his body English telling Hakam he was mining in the right area.

  “I’m running out of patience, Your Holiness. I like to know who my enemies are before I go into battle with them.”

  “Your enemy,” said the pope, “is yourself. You kill in the name of God when there is no God that would ever condone the killing of another human being. By doing what you do—what all of you do—you condemn yourselves to Hell when you should be living life to full measure.”

  Hakam leaned forward, his smile gone with his normal demeanor of placid indifference taking on a harder look. “His name,” he said. “And what is he?”

  The pope remained silent as both men stood a meter apart, eyes connected, a test of wills, one Pius was about to lose.

  “I have never killed a man in my life,” said Hakam, his voice even and calm. “And I have never laid my hands on a firearm. Taking the life of a man only proves that the assassin has dominion over the life for which he takes and nothing more. True power comes from directing others to kill for you. Not only does the one with true power have dominion over the life he orders to be killed, but the authority over the person he orders to do the killing. Dominion over everybody is the key to getting what I want. And I shall have it.” Hakam never took his eyes off the pope when he held his hand out and snapped his fingers.

  From the corner of his eye Pope Pius saw the man with the garrote step into view, the fine cord stretched taut between his two hands, the assassin’s face neutral as he waited.

  “Now watch true power,” said Hakam. He simply pointed out his target, the bishop who earlier made a futile attempt to escape to the rear of the plane, a man who was still dazed from the blow to the head as the assassin with the garrote raced to him. “He’s half dead anyway,” Hakam commented.

  “Please don’t do this,” said Pius.

  “Then you should have given me what I wanted.”

  Wrapping the garrote around the bishop’s throat, the cleric fought feebly by clawing and raking his hands through the air, and then at his throat, the line digging, squeezing the life from his body, his glazed eyes further detaching themselves from reality, and finally his life. When it was over the assassin carefully postured the bishop in his seat with the dead man’s chin resting against his chest.

  It was over in less than a minute.

  “Do you have that kind of power?” asked Hakam.

  The pope was racked with sorrow. “You didn’t need to do that. What I told you was the truth!”

  “What you told me was the half truth. Now I want the whole truth or you will be down to ten bishops. Who is your valet? What am I up against?”

  Pope Pius closed his eyes. The muscles in the back of his jaw began to work in serpentine motion. “He’s a Vatican Knight,” he finally said.

  Hakam tilted his head. He made it a point to keep on top of most things regarding counter military faction groups in order to be well prepared and always guarded. But he never heard of such an order. “He’s a what?”

  “A Vatican Knight.”

  “And what is a Vatican Knight?”

  Hakam could tell the pope was hesitant to speak. But no further prompting was needed as Pope Pius finally did so. “He is part of a specialized group of elite commandos created to serve
the Church,” he said. “They serve in a military capacity far beyond the skills and range of the Swiss Guard.”

  Hakam stood back, inwardly astonished, his features betraying little, if anything. “Commandos?” It was more of a statement of disbelief rather than a question. “And why would the Vatican need such an elite group of commandos to serve them?”

  Pius turned to him. “To stop people like you from doing things like this,” he said. “The Church is always under the constant threat of attack.”

  Hakam now understood. The man was not a priest but a soldier, a commando, a man who harbored the nature of a warrior. The reason why he was omitted from the passenger list was because he was not supposed to exist. Apparently the Vatican Knights were a ghost faction well hidden under the auspices of the Church. “Why have I not heard of them?”

  “You haven’t heard of them because they do not exist in the eyes of the world.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “Sometimes they engage in missions and use techniques that are against everything the Church teaches, but necessary to achieve the means.”

  Hakam appeared incredulous. “They’re assassins,” he said.

  The pope shook his head. “Not at all,” he stated. “They exist to serve the Church in search-and-rescue operations. Other times they’re sent in to dismantle insurgent risings before innocent people are killed.”

  Hakam could not dispel his look of incredulity. “I see,” he finally said. And then, “About twenty minutes ago your Knight worked his way out of his binds and is hiding somewhere below, like the coward he is. I sent three of my men after him. Good men. The best in the Elite Guard Regiment who were the professors of warfare who trained others in the Republican or Revolutionary Guard to be the best they could be in combat. There are none better. Not even your Vatican Knight. To prove this I will have his head sitting beside you. This I promise.”

  The pope looked at him, folded his hands in an attitude of prayer, and held them out in a pleading manner. “Please,” he said, “no more need to die. Please call them back before it’s too late.”